Excerpt:
…(O)wners of houses to be destroyed would be compensated within 1-3 months for a price equivalent to the value of their house before they were damaged by the storm…
Xynthia victims, however, perceive the planned destruction to be brutal and unfair.
The French government has decided to stay firm on its decision to destroy more than 1,500 houses in areas of “extreme danger” along the Atlantic coast. The decision follows the deaths of 53 people from storm “Xynthia,” the violent winter storm that battered Europe’s west coast on Feb. 28.
Hope had risen among residents that they could save their homes following a statement made by Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux on April 11, in which he said, “There could be individual, precise, and discrete situations that could need a deepened analysis.”
On April 12, state secretary and president of local the general council Dominique Bussereau announced he would bring to President Sarkozy a motion passed by Charentes-Maritime general council that asks for all homes, especially those said to be in “extreme danger,” to be evaluated first, for what would be needed to protect them, before finalizing a decision to destroy them.
Yet on April 13, Prime Minister Francois Fillon declared following a special Cabinet meeting, that the criteria used by the French state to define the dangerous zone are “objective criteria, based on concrete, precise, observations. They are not to be challenged, at least not at the current stage…”
