Optical fiber, territorial reform and wind at the appointment of the mayors in 2012

La Renaissance–Le Bessin of October 26, 2012 reported on the annual meeting of the Amicale des maires du canton, hosted the previous Monday at the Château de Colombières by its owner, the Count of Maupeou. About a hundred people had been able to exchange with elected officials and administrations, in particular on territorial reform, the deployment of optical fiber and wind.

Jean-Léonce Dupont, president of the general council, presented the guidelines then envisaged for the territorial reform. He announced the abandonment of the territorial councilor, already voted according to him in the Senate, and wanted a lightening of the standards applied to local elected officials, whose number he advanced by about four hundred thousand. The reform was also intended to clarify the competences of the Department and the Region. It indicated that the municipal, European and senatorial elections were maintained in 2014, while the cantonal and regional elections were postponed to 2015.

A departmental fiber optic project

Fiber was supposed to allow locals and businesses to access connections exceeding one hundred megabits per second. The announced investment budget was one hundred and seventy million euros, including twenty-five million for the Department. Jean-Léonce Dupont compared this participation to the cost of one kilometer of highway and saw it as an important technological and competitive progress. It predicted that by 2015 seventy-five percent of the rural population could connect.

Frédéric Ollivier, Director General of Departmental Services, explained that the new network had to gradually replace copper wires. He highlighted the throughput capacity, longevity and ease of repair of the fiber. Three phases were planned: a collection network forming a departmental loop, a service network bringing fiber to the right of housing, by air or underground, then the connection of housing. According to the projections presented, ninety-eight percent of the homes could be connected without major work or expenses to be borne by the applicant.

Most of the project was to be completed in four years, with nearly two hundred thousand connected homes. The first municipalities mentioned were Aignerville, Bernesq, Colleville-sur-Mer, Écrammeville, Le Breuil-en-Bessin, Louvières, Maisons, Rubercy, Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer, Sainte-Honorine-des-Pertes, Saonnet, Saon, Trévières and Vierville-sur-Mer.

For municipalities in the white zone not receiving ADSL, a Wimax solution was announced on a transitional basis. The speeds mentioned were ten to fifteen megabits per second, considered higher than those of ADSL. This technology was to be erased as the fiber arrived.

A debate on the wind diagram

Monique Ménage, mayor of Russy, was concerned about amendments 461 and 482 relating to progressive energy pricing and the regional wind scheme recently discovered by elected officials and residents. She feared a disorderly multiplication of land-based wind turbines, with consequences on landscapes, heritage, tourism and the life of rural communities. She believed that the offshore park project should limit land-based installations and asked officials to intervene against the amendments announced for the Senate debate of October 25. She also recalled that wind was not, according to her, the only solution for the development of alternative energies.

The sub-prefect Zoheir Bouaouiche replied that the prefect had decided to revise the scheme and consult the elected officials again, the first steps having not been satisfactory. He presented the document as a guideline framework without a prescriptive nature, identifying more or less suitable areas. He indicated that elected officials would retain their role in building permits and that the areas would be discussed again.

Jean-Léonce Dupont added that a refusal of a permit had to be motivated to resist an appeal. He ensured to follow the revision of the scheme and wanted a less intensive land approach in return for the major offshore project, which he considered of national interest.

Reconstructed or uncertain passages:
- The timetables, technical objectives and legal analyses are reported as statements from the 2012 meeting, without being updated. The effects attributed to wind are the fears and positions of the stakeholders, not the consequences observed by the rewriting.

Archive image: https://vierville.cordelle.eu/PhDoc16/2012Oct26-FibresOptiques.jpg