Nantes (AFP)

"You are smoking us!": 450 people participated Tuesday in Nantes, in a stormy atmosphere, at the first public meeting on the project of redevelopment of the Nantes-Atlantique airport, on the table after the abandonment of the project of Notre-Dame-des-Landes.

"It is a concertation facelift, a dialogue dupes," launches the microphone Joel Sauvaget, president of the Collective of citizens exposed to air traffic (COCETA). This group of residents of the current Nantes-Atlantique airport has filed an appeal on 21 May before the State Council to suspend the public consultation that will last until July 31, because he considers it biased and too restrictive.

His speech just finished, the tribune, in plaid shirt, is generously applauded by a packed house: a standing ovation fed by the feeling, majority, that the transfer of the airport, currently landlocked in an urbanized area, remains the only viable solution for the future.

But this option does not appear among the five scenarios presented by the General Directorate of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the owner of the future redevelopment project that could spread from 2022 to 2025. The maintenance of the current runway , an extension of 400 m, another of 800 m, the creations of a transversal track or a track in "V" are evoked ... but the transfer has become taboo since the defeat of the project of Notre-Dame- des-Landes, finally abandoned by the state on January 17, 2018.

In turn, nine speakers follow one another on stage: they each have five minutes to present their point of view. At the applaudimeter, it is undoubtedly the pro-transfer supporters who win the vote of the public, disappointed by a local consultation in 2016 - 55% of "yes" for the transfer - remained vain.

"I know the resulting bitterness, the disappointment that results," tries Claude d'Harcourt, the prefect of Loire-Atlantique, constantly harangued during his speech.

"How do you want to be part of such a consultation when our vote was flouted? It is impossible. Transfer, nothing else!", Adds a citizen of Rezé, concerned by the overflight of aircraft. Twenty-four municipalities in the Nantes agglomeration also call for a ban on night flights to reduce noise pollution.

- "legitimate interrogations" -

Among the speeches that follow one another in a feverish atmosphere, sometimes turning to the cacophony, concerns are voiced on aviation safety and the health issue induced by the increasing activity of aircraft over homes and institutions despite measures against airport nuisance provided by the state compensation fund.

The airport concession, managed by Vinci, is to be renewed in 2021 against a background of exponential development: air traffic, from more than 6.2 million passengers in 2018, is expected to increase to 9.4 million in 2030, or even 11 , 4 million in 2040, according to the growth assumptions of the DGAC, challenged by the COCETA.

"In total, between 470 and 990 million euros depending on the options selected" will be required for redevelopment work, without payment of public subsidy, recalls Yoann La Corte, director of Nantes-Atlantic project at the DGAC.

But the room barely listens ... Exchanges, passionate, are especially a way for residents to redo the lost match against the opponents of the ZAD Notre-Dame-des-Landes.

"For us, it's not easy to be in this room with people who have legitimate questions, but what do we do?" asks La Corte, referring to the "transparency" of the debates.

"Transfer! Transfer! Transfer!", The participants respond, clapping their hands, before getting up to leave the room, visibly annoyed, after three hours of a dialogue of the deaf.

? 2019 AFP