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INPRIMATU
Two surf parks in France are canceled thanks to the struggles of ecologists
  • The initiative to implement the artificial wave in the town of Saint-Père-en-Retz in the Loire Atlantic has been rejected. The intention was to use agricultural land from eight hectares to ten kilometres of the sea. On the other hand, in the municipality of Sevran, in the department of Seine-Saint-Denis, there was a desire to organise a leisure area of 32 hectares and the municipal plenary voted against the surf park.
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Saint-Père-en-Retz udalerrian olatu artifiziala ezartzeko egitasmoaren maketa.

The news has been published by Reporterre, le quotidien d’écologie. In the Atlantic Loire, in Saint-Père-en-Retz, a town of some 4,000 inhabitants, it was intended to use agricultural land to build an artificial wave through the Bergerie Surf Camp project. Citizens and environmental activists have been protesting since 2018 for the construction of a surf park. In June, the project was announced to be halted and a relocation plan launched. The Terres communes association is pleased with the achievement, but has denounced that the association has suffered the consequences of the fight and that, among other things, they will have to pay EUR 1,000 fine because the land of others was trampled underfoot to live there for a while.

The association is still on alert, as the mayor of the town has announced that he does not want the land that lives in the park to be farmland again.

They're also back in Sevran.

The project was called Terre d’eaux et de culture (land of water and culture). In some 32 hectares of land, it was intended to organize housing, leisure areas and shops, among other things. Among the participants was the surf park of the locality. Neighbours and associations have opposed the project, as has the mayor of the Biscay town, who has rejected it. On 27 May they decided to give a new direction to the initiative and, among other things, they agreed to leave the surf park. The artificial wave was expected to use approximately 608 million litres of water annually.

In the same area, another project has not been paralysed. Ten kilometers from the goal, in Vairà-Torcy, they are about to make a surf park. According to Francis Redon, a member of the Environnement 93 partnership, it has nothing to do with the Sevrán project and is more environmentally sustainable.