In Dordogne, the road that drives you crazy or the lurid story of the Beynac deviation – L’Express

Here we go again for a ride? At the announcement of a new episode in the endless soap opera of the Beynac bypass, the inhabitants of the Dordogne valley no longer know whether they should roll their eyes in weariness, cry in the face of so much absurdity or laugh. of the aberration of the situation. For years, in fact, this corner of the Périgord Noir, measuring 40 by 30 kilometers, which sees more than 2 million tourists per year, has been torn apart around a road project of exactly 3.2 kilometers. A war which opposes a (socialist) president of the departmental council, “castelains” who dream of themselves as Jacquou le Croquant, an association I love Beynac and its valley, another For the protection of the Dordogne valley ( ASVD), a law firm created by a former Minister of the Environment and a few other tasty characters. A war that borders on the absurd since, on November 5, a departing prefect authorized a new project, close to the one that a court of law had banned. Project which will be the subject of a new appeal which itself will be contested…

To fully understand the matter, you have to imagine Beynac-et-Cazenac, perched on a peak, whose only access road, the departmental 703, winds between the Dordogne on one side and cliffs on the other. For the town and its 550 inhabitants, the service is sufficient, but the village is located on the Bordeaux-Aurillac transit route and it is classified among the most beautiful in France. Nearby, the castles of Castelnaud, Fayrac and Milandes (former property of the recently pantheonized Joséphine Baker) also attract tourists. Since the 1980s, there has been talk of improving traffic there. A diversion project was studied, but never launched, the mayor proposed widening the roadway to facilitate vehicle crossings, the supporters of the diversion found the solution insufficient, the status quo lasted for years. Then, in 2018, work on the bypass began, involving the construction of two bridges over the Dordogne and a road of just over three kilometers.

2 million euros in fines for the department

One year later, seized by the ASVD and an environmental association, the Council of State canceled the authorization granted by the prefecture. The deviation does not present, according to him, a “compelling reason of major public interest” justifying a departure from the legislation on protected species which applies in this Natura 2000 classified area. In 2022, the administrative court of appeal of Bordeaux orders the restoration of the premises within one year. Under the leadership of its president, the socialist Germinal Peiro, the departmental council is reluctant. He believes that the opponents – Philippe d’Eaubonne, and the owners of various castles, Kléber Rossillon or the American Newell family – are only wealthy people who defend their private real estate interests. In July 2023, however, he was forced to pay a penalty of 489,000 euros for not having started the demolition work, then more than 1 million euros for not having completed them within the allotted time.

Faced with the rising bill, the departmental council resigns itself to putting the kilometer of road already built out of use and paying the sums due. But he doesn’t touch the bridge piers. In 2024, it submits a new project with a road layout identical to the first, accompanied by soft mobility solutions (reopening of a station, cycle paths, electric shuttles) to demonstrate its good faith with a “global development of the valley” . On November 5, the prefect, just before his departure for another position at Place Beauvau, gave the green light. The opponents cry out greenwashing of the previous project and promise an appeal before the administrative court.

The situation is more grotesque than ever. The prefect has obtained from Germinal Peiro that he will not start work on the new bypass until all legal appeals have been exhausted, which could take one to two years. But what about the developments – bridge piers, embankments – already carried out as part of the first project? Should they be destroyed as justice orders when they could be useful if the new plan is carried out? And if the department stops the demolition work, must it continue to pay the penalties? When in doubt, on November 26, the assembly voted for a provision of 1.8 million euros for penalties for 2025. But it will also be necessary to pay compensation, not quantified to date, to companies penalized by the shutdown of the demolition site.

Faced with a population exasperated by this unnecessary spending in a context of a falling budget, everyone is deploying their arguments to win support. We go through a lot of cars and trucks per year. To better support one thesis or the other, “annual averages” are opposed to “summer attendance”. The danger of falling pieces of cliff is presented as imminent by some, even if no accident has ever been reported, as others point out. The environmental risk that justified the decision of the Council of State? It no longer exists since the bridge piers have already been built; destroying them would only further destabilize the ecosystem, argue the project’s supporters. False, retort the opponents, who, through the Huglo Lepage cabinet, created by Corinne Lepage, call for respect for the rule of law. As for the expenses already incurred (more than 20 million euros), they must be made profitable by continuing the project, argues the majority. If this money was spent “wasted funds”, it is due to the stubbornness of Germinal Peiro, opponents defend.

The exchanges take a deleterious turn. On the one hand, we come to suggest that justice is influenced – after all, is not the president of the administrative court of appeal of Bordeaux the former campaign director of Yannick Jadot in the presidential election of 2022? We criticize these “lords” who sacrifice the general interest because they do not want to see cars from their terrace. On the other hand, we denounce the maneuvers “in Paris” to promote the realization of the project. Even Stéphane Bern, the “Mr. Heritage” of the Elysée, loses his Latin. In 2018, he took up the cause of the opponents and called Germinal Peiro a “potentate”, now he says he is no longer opposed to the project “if it respects the environment more” and says he is “ready to smoke the pipe of peace” with his yesterday’s enemy.

In a small world where everyone knows each other, the affair poisons the atmosphere. Even if they regret Germinal Peiro’s stubbornness, if they disagree with him, many local elected officials follow him. They know that one day or another, they will need the support of the department. The LR opposition in the department has, for example, approved the latest project to finally break the deadlock. Recently interviewed by France Bleu, Sébastien Peytavie, the environmentalist deputy for the constituency, referred to the court decision. Now, many want to turn the page on this war which is, in their eyes, less a battle of reason than a quarrel of egos dating back decades. We no longer really know its origins but in the valley, we readily recall the tensions between the family of Germinal Peiro, whose father was also a local elected official, and that of Kléber Rossillon. Some are already predicting it: “The day these two men are no longer here, the road will be made.” This forgets that justice can ignore local exasperation and judge, once again in a few months, the project incompatible with environmental law.