Le Figaro Bordeaux
Is this a childhood dream of the president of the region, a 72-year-old socialist elected official at the head of Nouvelle-Aquitaine since 1998? Despite an extremely negative opinion from the Environmental Agency, even encouraging the project to see the light of day elsewhere, and strong criticism from environmentalists, the president of Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Alain Rousset, continues to support a project for a factory of dirigible balloons in Gironde, in the commune of Laruscade. On 6 November, the region granted a subsidy of three million euros to the company Flying Whales, which wants to set up its factory in the middle of the forest.
This oversized project has been supported by Alain Rousset for several years. In 2019, when signing an agreement with Flying Whales, the Socialist MEP had already highlighted an "industrial adventure" and "a bet on clean and low-cost transport", even admitting to having "a certain greed" for this pharaonic project. This is due to the fact that 33% of the capital of the company's shareholder company, Flying Whales, is held by the region. If it sees the light of day, this project to set up in Laruscade, estimated at 450 million euros, aims to manufacture flying cargo ships 200 metres long and 50 metres in diameter, capable of transporting up to 60 tonnes.
The Laruscade site includes two buildings 60 m high and 250 m wide. Flying Whales
As early as 2020, Alain Rousset had announced that the project would be located in this commune of Haute Gironde, seeing it as "a major act of our desire for industrial development of the territory". Two 250-metre-long and 60-metre-high buildings, needed to produce the company's airships, could therefore be built in this wooded town. Flying Whales planned to start construction of the plant in 2021, with a first airship produced in 2023, and eventually ten machines manufactured each year on this industrial site. As a result, 200 to 300 jobs could be created in the region. But the project seems far from coming out of the ground, especially because of its harmful impact on the environment.
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32.5 hectares of wetlands destroyed
Seized by the Gironde prefecture, the Environmental Authority (AE) of the General Inspectorate of the Environment and Sustainable Development (IGEDD) came to temper the ardor of the president of the region, in an opinion issued on 19 October. The EA explains that "the project will have a very strong impact on the region's natural heritage", and warns about "the level of impact of the project on ecological continuities", in connection with the surrounding Natura 2000 sites. According to the Environmental Authority, this project will require the destruction of 58 hectares of natural habitats, 90% of which will be wooded areas.
The construction site itself threatens many protected species. In particular, 32.5 hectares of wetlands will be affected by the works, "by backfilling and waterproofing", says the EA, which also recalls that "waterproofing will constitute a loss of carbon-sequestering habitats". In its opinion, the EA therefore recommends numerous additional analyses and developments, in order to know more precisely the impact of this project and reduce the destruction of the environment, for example by developing the fence surrounding the site, to allow the passage of wildlife and "mitigate the break in ecological continuity that it will generate".
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This unreasonable project combines every conceivable attack on biodiversity
Green MEP Jean-Louis Pagès
Faced with the multiplicity of these issues, the Autorité recommends to Flying Whales a more drastic solution, in order to spare this wetland and forest: to choose a site other than that of Laruscade. A suggestion that the president of the region brushes aside, preferring to insist on the possible jobs created and the tons of goods that would no longer be transported by truck if this project were to finally blossom. But not all elected officials in the regional council are of the same opinion. "Whatever the very hypothetical success of this industrial project, the report of the Environmental Authority confirms that it would lead to the irreparable destruction of about sixty hectares of natural habitats and wetlands near two Natura 2000 sites," said Jean-Louis Pagès, a Green MEP.
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These flying whales look like old sea serpents, of which no credible prototype has ever been presented, except perhaps that of the stillborn Airlifter airship that crashed during its first test sortie in 2017," the ecologist said. For him, "this unreasonable project accumulates all imaginable attacks on biodiversity: noise, light pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, waterproofing and concretization of a quarter of the total surface, rupture of ecological continuities, etc." However, the opinion of the Environmental Authority remains advisory. Despite the risks to biodiversity, this project could well be completed.