The third time was the right one. Friday at dawn, the oceanic buoy Armorique, ship of the Lighthouses and beacons of Brest, was finally able to deposit the lantern, at the end of the pier.

"Seeing him on the dock is great, it's great. Really, it's a relief," said Marie-Line Bruneau, manager of a driving school in Normandy.

The young woman, who spends all her holidays in Moguériec, drove 400 km, then woke up at dawn three days in a row to witness this moment. "The lighthouse is the symbol of the corner, we absolutely wanted it," she explained.

The small fire had been threatened since 2015, when the Interregional Directorate of the North Sea Atlantic Channel North-West (DIRM NAMO, which oversees the Lighthouses and Beacons service) had decided not to restore it, mainly for financial reasons.

The entrance light of the port of Moguériec, in Sibiril in Finistère, after its renovation on April 21, 2023 © FRED TANNEAU / AFP

"The dangerousness of access to the fire for the agents in charge of maintenance had also weighed," said DIRM NAMO to AFP.

In Moguériec, this decision "created a lot of excitement," recalls Arnaud Lampire, president of the association Sauvons le phare de Moguériec.

Because the history of this small lantern, about ten meters high and 7.5 tons, is rich and singular.

In 1876, the result of a collaboration between the engineer Gustave Eiffel and the industrialist Louis Sautter, it was designed in the Eiffel workshops in Levallois-Perret. The same year, after having descended the Seine, he was installed on the Norman port of Honfleur (Calvados).

The entrance light of the port of Moguériec, in Sibiril in Finistère, after its renovation on April 21, 2023 © FRED TANNEAU / AFP

Painted by Seurat, the master of pointillism, the lighthouse also served as a theatre for the young composer Erik Satie. After escaping the bombings of the Second World War and becoming unusual, it was finally installed in 1960 in the port of Finistère, then the first lobster port in France, at the request of seafarers.

- 'Paid by fishermen' -

"It was paid by fishermen with the introduction of a tax on the value of fish landed," Lampire said.

But with wear, it loses its luster. "The lighthouse was very tired, well attacked by rust. Either it was restored, or it was put in the dump," says Olivier Thébault, works manager of the Crézé metalwork in Saint-Jacques-de-la-Lande, near Rennes, where he followed his makeover.

A six-month restoration that had to be financed to the tune of 540,000 euros with donations and "European, regional, departmental and state funds", notes the mayor of Sibiril (Finistère), Jacques Edern, hailing "the enthusiasm of the inhabitants of the town and beyond" which has made it possible to preserve "this maritime heritage".

Because, "it is really an Eiffel-style lighthouse", with the "same rivets as the Eiffel Tower", notes Mr. Thébault, observing the green and white building that has been given a makeover. "We have the original ears, the bodyguards, the dome, the internal staircase, the weather vane... Two-thirds are original, we kept everything we could."

Its twin lighthouse, white and red (for port), restored in the 2010s, has also travelled well since its original assignment in Honfleur: it serves as a lookout in Menton (Alpes-Maritimes), more than 1,000 km from Moguériec.

The entrance light of the port of Moguériec, in Sibiril in Finistère, after its renovation on April 21, 2023 © FRED TANNEAU / AFP

"Twelve Eiffel lighthouses were built to be laid in France between 1875 and 1878 and only three remain: Menton, Fromentine (Vendée) and therefore Moguériec," says Mr. Lampire.

Even though the lighthouses have been supplanted by GPS, the Moguériec lighthouse will continue to perform its function as an aid to navigation. "It will not be a ceremonial beacon," Edern promises.

© 2023 AFP