In Saint-Malo, residents may be able to attend an extraordinary sale in a few months.
500 breakwaters, which adorn the beach of Sillon, must be changed.
An exceptional project, for parts which are no less so.
These little bits of history, to which Chateaubriand already referred in his
Memoirs from beyond the grave
, have acquired, over the course of their 200 years of existence, great sentimental and financial value among the Malouins.
A windfall that is disputed today between the agglomeration and the state.
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Initially, it is a simple administrative development.
Until then, these thousands of breakwaters, responsible for breaking waves and limiting their effects on the city's fortifications, were the property of the State.
The various decentralization laws of recent years have entrusted the “
management of aquatic environments and the prevention of floods
” (Gemapi) to the inter-municipal authorities.
It is therefore Saint-Malo Agglomeration which must recover this property.
In order to transfer a work in perfect condition, work must be carried out after the summer to change the 500 most damaged oak barrels.
Everything could have stopped there if the announcement of these works had not aroused the appetite of many artists, architects or ordinary inhabitants of the town, interested in the idea of acquiring a marker of local identity.
"
We had a lot of calls from restorers, sculptors and others
", we recognize in the agglomeration, which routs each time to the Departmental Directorate of Territories and the Sea (DDTM), in charge of the building on behalf of the State.
Contacted by Le Figaro, the DDTM did not wish to respond.
Disagreement on the beneficiary of the future sale
The local authorities themselves would like to obtain some of these oaks to decorate the city or to mark, on the roadside, the entry into the territory.
They hoped to be able to get the breakwaters back for a symbolic euro, but in the face of growing interest, DDTM does not seem enthusiastic about the idea.
The question is not yet decided.
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The terms of the sale must also be studied.
An auction seems to be holding the line.
But there remains the question of storage and transport: "
You do not leave with your breakwater under your arm
", finely notes the Agglomeration.
There is also a problem with the allocation of profits from the sale.
Who will collect them, the State or the City?
And for what use?
If nothing is decided, ideas are not lacking.
Unsuccessful candidate for the City of Saint-Malo, Anne Le Gagne proposed, at the time of the elections, to organize an auction whose profits "
would go to associations which mobilized during the Covid crisis, to take care of the most vulnerable .
For the current mayor, Gilles Lurton (the republicans) the money could be used to carry out other maintenance work on the heritage according to the newspaper
Le Pays Malouin
, which warns that the use of the result of the sale of the old breeze -blades to finance the new ones is, it seems, legally impossible ...