Thibaud Hue 10:00 a.m., May 23, 2022
The government has unveiled the list of 126 municipalities classified as priorities in the face of coastal erosion and the retreat of the coastline aggravated by global warming.
The text provides for new town planning constraints and building bans.
All the localities concerned can be found on our map.
Is your municipality threatened by rising waters?
The government has published, in the Official Journal, the list of cities that will have to adapt as a priority to erosion aggravated by global warming.
In total, 126 localities are concerned, in mainland France and in the Overseas Territories.
The majority of them are located on the Atlantic coasts (31 in New Aquitaine) and in the West of France (41 in Brittany and 16 in Normandy).
Guadeloupe, Martinique and Guyana are also concerned.
A map to assess the risks
According to the national indicator of coastal erosion, the Climate and Resilience law of 2021 provides for new provisions for these municipalities on the front line.
The mayors will have to map the areas threatened by the rising waters, at 30 and 100 years.
This map should serve as a basis for establishing new rules for land use planning.
Thus, certain places will be labeled as no longer buildable and relocation prospects for many houses and seaside infrastructure will have to be imagined.
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1.5 million inhabitants concerned in France
This list will be reviewed every nine years and may well grow.
According to official figures, 864 French municipalities are already "particularly vulnerable" to marine flooding.
About 1.5 million people live in these threatened areas.
On February 12, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, then Minister for Ecological and Solidarity Transition, announced to Le Parisien that she wanted to “relocate” housing threatened by maritime erosion.
It indicates that between 5,000 and 50,000 homes are directly threatened by the retreat of the coastline by the end of the century.