Le Figaro Nantes
The longest bridge in France is a link.
It is also an end point.
This is the Saint-Nazaire bridge, an impressive strip of asphalt measuring 3,356 meters, placed on 54 reinforced concrete piers.
Inaugurated in 1975, the structure which connects the two banks of the Loire estuary is today used by more than 33,000 vehicles.
Its serpentine silhouette, bristling with stays, is the pride of the surrounding communities.
A sinister reputation grips him, however.
The bridge is also known for being the diving board for the dying, a place favored by people seeking to kill themselves.
And the phenomenon is accelerating.
The Loire-Atlantique authorities do not communicate directly on the number of suicides who throw themselves annually from the Saint-Nazaire bridge.
The Departmental Fire and Rescue Service nevertheless recorded an increase in jump threats, which correspond to interventions carried out by the firefighters after the call for witnesses.
These increased from 24 to 30 per year between 2021 and 2023, or almost three interventions per month.
Not to mention the facts which are not the subject of a report.
Prevent and cure
This increase, to be linked to the deterioration of mental health in France, worries the Loire-Atlantique department, manager of the Saint-Nazaire bridge.
The community organized a meeting in January with several local and state actors
“to have a global vision of the issues and actions carried out around suicide”
.
Participants noted the upcoming display of suicide prevention messages and the associated national number - 3114 -, long requested by victims' families.
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A significant part of the work takes place upstream, caring for people in distress, before they even think about taking action.
A movement to which the associative world is invited, in particular through a working group with the department and the Regional Health Agency (ARS) of Pays de la Loire.
“We try with the means available to us to ensure monitoring through our telephone listening, weekly hotlines dedicated to specialized support and to encourage the creation of links between members.
These actions are part of the objectives of the local mental health contract supported by the city of Saint-Nazaire
,” explains to
Figaro
Loni Inguanez, clinical psychologist and secretary of the Revivre Association, dedicated to adults suffering from mental illness.
It is difficult, in fact, to work at the very level of the structure, the center of which rises 61 meters above the rushing mouth of the Loire.
For several years, regular patrols have been carried out along the bridge by road officers.
Relatives of victims, however, ask the department to go further and install safety nets.
“This bridge is there, in front of us, very close, it invites us to jump,”
the brother of a man who disappeared in 2023
tells our colleagues at
Presse Océan
. “If we remove this option, we will dissuade.”
The nets of discord
Requested by
Le Figaro,
Thierry Deville, elected from the minority on the departmental council and 2nd deputy at the town hall of Saint-Brévin-les-Pins - located at the southern access to the Saint-Nazaire bridge - finds it
"legitimate"
to consider better security of the work.
The safety net route, examined by the department, would however present difficulties.
“The technical feasibility of such a project arises, due to the vigorous winds which sometimes suffer along the estuary,”
notes the elected official.
Gusts can easily reach 120 km/h in the area, requiring the bridge to be closed to traffic.
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The Loire-Atlantique department confirms the constraint of wind resistance, before mentioning the
“significant modifications which would be necessary to the structure”
in order to respond to the technical challenge.
A project which would therefore not be impossible, provided you pay the price.
This is the challenge taken up, in the United States, by the Golden Gate Bridge.
The emblematic structure of the San Francisco Bay also attracted a significant number of visitors with dark ideas.
We finally decided to create a safety net.
The system was inaugurated in January, ten years after being approved and after having gone through a real path of the cross marked by legal proceedings and soaring costs, from 76 to more than 200 million dollars.
The example is enough to cool the enthusiasm of a department already in a state
of “budgetary impasse”
,
according to the expression used in December by its socialist president, Michel Ménard.
Despite everything, clearings exist around the Saint-Nazaire bridge.
The issue of video surveillance cameras, in particular, is about to be resolved.
The 29 state-of-the-art devices which crisscross the bridge live, notably automatically thanks to artificial intelligence, are currently unable to record.
Contacted by
Le Figaro,
the prefecture confirms that the activation of this capacity, requested last summer, is only a matter of days.
It will be accompanied by the deployment of 11 information panels for pedestrians, as provided for by legislation.
“It was a pressing request from the gendarmerie
,” says Thierry Deville.
If this can save even one person, that will be fantastic
. ”