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Portel des Corbieres and Abbey du Fontfroide at loggerheads over Wind Farm |
10th May 2004 |
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They came, they saw, they got hungry, they had a picnic- Protest Portel style.
Lead by Patricia Chabaud, the Mayor of Portel des Corbieres, 200 people held a protest picnic to block the entrance to the Abbey of Fontfroide in the Corbieres on Sunday (9th May).
What you may well ask had Nicolas d'Andoque, owner of the Abbey of Fontfroide, done to deserve the angry attention of the people of Portel des Corbieres, Maryse Arditi, the Green Languedoc Regional Council Vice-President, Senator Roland Couteau, and the socialist Deputy, Jacques Bascou? Had he sold the Abbey of Fontfroide to mad monks like in Lagrasse, was he planning a nuclear power station in the Cloisters, was he suspected of being a vampire? No, none of the above, he is suspected of secretly pulling strings to get the Prefect of the Aude Department to veto the plan to put 10 wind generators on the hills of Couloubret, which separate Fontfroide from Portel des Corbieres.
Certainly Nicolas d'Andoque, alongside the Mayor of Narbonne, had voiced his strong opposition to the project, which has the backing not just of Portel des Corbieres but the majority of the communes of the "Corbieres en Mediterranee" region. Whether this opposition was the determining factor that lead the Prefect of the Aude to say no, is unknown. In the eyes of Chabaud, the protesters from Portel and the other "Corbieres en Mediterranee" communes, the Prefect of the Aude has abused his powers, and has placed private interests above the wider community.
Under the slogan "Le vent est notre richesse.Laissez-nous vivre avec" the picnic protest is seen as theng salvo in a series of protests aimed at over turning the Aude Prefect's decision. Claiming that the decision threatens theng of a Danish owned wind generator factory in Port la Nouvelle and the development work of Portel des Corbieres, it promises to be a hot summer at Fontfroide.
Jean-Marc Boudet, regional director of SIIF Energies du Midi, who are the company behind the wind farm development, who with his family joined the picnic said, "This is the first time, that I know of, when there has been a demonstration for a wind farm!"
The friction between conservation and sustainable development, decentralised decision making and the central State, and private lobbying and public protest all came together on the Couloubret hills. What is clear is that the process behind the Aude Prefect's decision is not as transparent as it should be.The survey done by the Huissier du Justice, which clearly showed that the wind farm would be invisible from the Abbey of Fontfroide, she went up in a helicopter and took photos from the maximum height of the blades, was disregarded. However the targeting of Nicolas d'Andoque as "enemy number one" by the Mayor of Portel des Corbieres is unjustifiably aggressive, and the threatened boycott of the European Elections, which will marginally effect the Prefect of the Aude as the returning officer, is so obviously self defeating as to be absurd. The protesters need as much political support as they can get, a boycott doesn't often win favour.
We need to know why the Aude Prefect made the decision he did, what were the determining factors that lead to his veto, does it represent a policy change or was it a one off veto,what does this mean for the future of sustainable energy in the Corbieres? Once we know that then the people of Portel and the Corbieres can decide what policy they want to see and set about making it happen.
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