95c | ISSUE 15 | OCTOBER 2012
publishers of
News and What’s On for Côtes d’Armor, Finistère, Ille-et-Vilaine and Morbihan
Fierce legal battle holds up regional airport plan
Village hits web in search for baker A SMALL village south of Rennes has turned to the internet in a last-ditch attempt to bring fresh bread to locals for the first time in 18 months. Like many small villages in rural Brittany, Boistrudan, near Janzé, has seen its shop and bar close but when the bakery shut, villagers were particularly outraged. The latest initiative from the mayor Constant Saffray has been to place adverts on a wide range of online sites to try to attract a boulanger to the village. He said he was determined to revive the heart of the village: “If we get a new baker there will be a new sign of life, a place to give people a reason to stop and talk and to move here.” His secretary Anne-Marie Legourd said that although there has been a lot of interest, she thinks people are put off by the lack of other facilities in the village and they need a new baker quickly to prevent people getting used to buying their bread elsewhere. Older people were upset that their daily habit of picking up a baguette came to a halt and others felt that the quality of the bread from supermarkets just was not up to scratch. Turn to page 2
by RAY CLANCY
History hangs by a thread Embroiderer keeping traditions alive P24
A CONTROVERSIAL project to build a major new international airport 90km south of Rennes is being met with a legal fight by protestors. The battle is becoming increasingly acrimonious both on a local and political level with national political parties criticising each other over the e556m development in Notre-Damedes-Landes, which would serve millions of residents in Brittany and the Pays de la Loire. Protestors are prepared to keep their campaign going for at least another two years and say they will do all they can to prevent houses and farmland being requisitioned. One man has been jailed, another has been banned from protesting for a year, several have been on a month-long hunger strike and others are ready to resist CRS police teams who are rumoured to be preparing to remove them from their homes and land. Work on the new airport between Rennes
and Nantes was scheduled to start at the end of this year but that has now been put back to 2014 with an opening date of 2017 after delays caused by public inquiries and local protests. Those in favour of the airport, including France’s new prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault – a former mayor of Nantes – point out that the new airport will create jobs not just in the immediate vicinity but throughout the region as well as benefiting millions of people within a two-hour radius. They also point out that bigger planes and more choice will give people access to all the major European cities. It will be popular with many Brittany residents as an easier alternative to using Paris Orly or Charles de Gaulle airport. Turn to page 4
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