THE TELEGRAPH: Storm Xynthia battered the French coast in February, but the residents are fighting the government's plan to force them out.
Georgette and Jacques Voyer lovingly constructed their home brick by brick, building a pretty bungalow perched on a sandy ridge among pine trees overlooking a vineyard.
Now the French government intends to flatten it. The property lies in a "black zone" damaged by terrible flooding in storm Xynthia in February, France's worst natural disaster for decades. Some 53 people died as 100mph winds whipped up huge waves that battered the coast.
Yet Mrs Voyer, 61, is adamant that her beloved home was untouched by the floodwater, and insists that she will not let demolition begin.
"If they come to bulldoze my house, then they will have to bulldoze me first," she said defiantly as her husband, a retired mechanical engineer, nodded in agreement. "There was no water inside our house at all. We are not flood victims. Yet they say it is now unsafe and must be destroyed."
The Voyers are not the only ones whose home is under threat despite having been spared the floodwater. It is one of a list of 1,510 properties scheduled for destruction in "black zones", affected areas in which everything will be levelled. The planned demolition will be one of the largest France has ever known.
The government has insisted that the drastic order must be carried out to ensure residents' safety because some properties have been badly damaged, and others have been shown to be vulnerable to future flooding.
"The state and the local authorities do not have the right to risk letting people return to areas where they could be in mortal danger," said the French prime minister, François Fillon, on Tuesday.
Residents beg to differ. Families who have made their homes in some of the most picturesque parts of unspoiled south-west France insist that many of their properties were in fact untouched by the floods. They accuse the government of over-reaction, amidst confusion over how compensation will be paid and claims that "black zones" have been drawn arbitrarily.
A mood of anger is spreading along the small coastal communities in the Charente-Maritime and Vendée regions, along the coast from La Rochelle. Law-abiding middle-class families like the Voyers insist they will not go. "You could put a million euros on the table, and we would not leave," said Mrs Voyer. >>> Harriet Alexander in La Faute-Sur-Mer | Saturday, April 17, 2010
