**Save Bourgon from irreparable damage: let’s stand together against the outrage of the wind farm project.**Must politicians be blind not to see the landscapes around them, must they be deaf to the voices warning them, to allow this to happen in the name of destructive “progress” and a powerful lobby that advances its agenda—often covertly—even in the face of headwinds?
Have politicians at the municipal, departmental, and national levels conspired to show contempt for this landscape—which is our greatest asset, the fruit of the labor of dozens of generations who have lived on these lands of France—and which they are now they are preparing to hand over to the steamroller of the self-righteous (and, above all, burdensome) wind power industry?
For that is precisely what this is about: a country thrown to the wolves—to people who can’t see beyond their own self-interest and who couldn’t care less about the future, about the legacy that will be left behind when hills, woods, forests, valleys, and meadows have been devastated by this army of metal sentinels whose arms, outstretched toward the sky, loom menacingly over our environment.
Wind power, yes—but not just anywhere, not just any way
If some energy production comes from wind power, why not? We shouldn’t automatically reject new technologies, especially when nuclear power is showing its limitations and dangers.
Far be it from us to deny that wind power has a place in our society, but for that to be the case, it must not mar the landscape or turn it into a field of wind turbines that mar the horizon.
Don Quixote and the Hot-Blooded One came and went…
The idea that wind power should adapt to its environment—and not the other way around—seems like a basic, common-sense observation. Wind turbines in vast, sparsely populated areas—in certain parts of the desert or out at sea, in rural areas with few residents—can be accepted and understood, although this also requires a minimum of explanation and reflection.
When you consider that this same lobby—and, sadly, a few politicians—thought it was a good idea to advocate for the installation of wind turbines in the bay of Mont Saint-Michel, it’s enough to make you throw up your hands in despair. Fortunately, and under the threat of losing UNESCO World Heritage status, the opponents of this offshore wind farm prevailed.
But what a battle! The thought that Mont Saint-Michel itself could have been ravaged by these wind-power inquisitors sends a chill down my spine. To them, France’s third-most-visited tourist site—with millions of visitors, a marvel of the Western world, a unique architectural masterpiece, and an unparalleled historical monument—could have been sacrificed and forever disfigured by this battalion standing rigidly at attention, immersed in the middle of the bay, in plain sight of everyone, like a gash in an age-old landscape.
Bourgon on the front lines
The same is true of Bourgon, now threatened by wind turbines, which stand directly in the line of sight of this magnificent castle, one of the most beautiful in Mayenne. In this lush setting, where the slender mansion has nobly defied the passage of time for centuries, the wind farm has once again decided to strike a blow by slapping the past in the face.
What goes through the mind of one of these wind energy critics to carry out such a massacre? Nothing—just hot air, you might say! Yes and no.
Yes, because the wind is at our backs, and this is nothing more and nothing less than an attempt to secure subsidies from a program aimed at installing wind turbines through a sort of municipal door-to-door blackmail: a little money for some, a lot for others, and for the rest, history is insulted with the contempt of the ignorant and the arrogance of the nouveau riche.
No, because this wind that sweeps everything away in its path is also rooted in the ground, with tons of concrete, a foundation for each wind turbine said to be equivalent to an Olympic-sized swimming pool, and a haphazard sequence of events whose conclusion—after a few decades of more or less productive use—could be summed up as “after me, the deluge,” since to date, it is stipulated that landowners must restore the land and the right-of-way to their original use, as if nothing had ever existed there.
Good heavens! But who will be around to verify this half a century from now? You, the policymakers who can’t see beyond the end of your term in office?
You, the citizens who cheer for wind turbines in exchange for a few coins and in the name of prevailing conservatism? You, the wind energy companies that turn wind into gold at the taxpayer’s expense? What’s next?
Put a stop to this intrusion that is upsetting the balance of everything
A disfigured village—you couldn’t care less! The castle, the forest, the ecosystem, the heritage… not a damn bit—once you’ve pulled off your scheme, you’ll go plant your arguments and your wind turbines somewhere else for cold, hard cash.
And like a bull in a china shop, you’ll shatter the harmony of the landscape so that your wind turbine blades can spin to the rhythm of your cash register. And so, little by little, over this landscape of ruins that your wind farm will become, the mournful strains of a haunting melody will rise—a requiem for Bourgon Castle and all those in your path.
Your so-called environmental credo—which in reality is all about money—has led you to distort the environment and undermine the spirit of wind power that could have blown in the right direction of history. But you have to keep churning out power poles by the kilometer, carrying out your underhanded schemes on the sly and taking advantage of the summer months, for example, to cement a situation and present the owners of a place like Bourgon with a fait accompli.
That of the Prince who decides without dialogue, without consultation, without knowledge, and with a single goal: to install linear kilometers of wind turbines here in Mayenne, as no doubt elsewhere, in defiance of our quality of life and of what history has bequeathed to us, of what geography has given us—namely, a territory that remains (for now) unspoiled—before your shovels and pickaxes ruthlessly destroy it.
SOS Bourgon, SOS Mayenne, SOS Heritage!
No need to go to the Amazon—right here in the heart of Mayenne, like a piece of Gruyère cheese, the department is riddled with this acute “wind farm fever.” We must stand up for Bourgon and every other home of this caliber; we must move mountains, and we know that Isabelle and Alain Ducatillon have the energy to make it happen; we must stop this bulldozer of state-sanctioned political correctness that gives free rein to the local barons and other petty rulers—figures we might laugh at if this fairy tale weren’t actually a tragic reality.
And to stay for a moment in Mayenne, the setting for our current debate, what does this modest department—nestled between Anjou and Brittany, between Maine and Normandy—have to offer on a national scale? Green tourism, a heritage dotted with small towns, flower-filled villages, unspoiled waterways, and civil and religious buildings bearing the traces of a history dating back to Roman Gaul (with Jublains), and then hundreds of castles, large and small, almost all of which are inhabited (making it, incidentally, the department with the most properties of this type).
Is this what some people want to sell to the highest bidder? When it cloaks itself in the guise of cleanliness, environmentalism, economic efficiency, and other virtues of a progressive rural way of life, the wind power industry is in reality merely advancing with its face concealed, behind the hideous mask of commercial deception.
Wind turbines are stirring up discord—and they couldn’t care less.
Elected officials of all stripes, take action before it’s too late… In France, we didn’t have oil, but we had ideas—or so we thought… That was replaced by the destructive force of this wind turbine tornado that sweeps everything away in its path.
Isn’t it time to sit down and reflect calmly so that our monuments don’t soon end up bristling with steel spires, sacrificed on the altar of a false modernity, metal ramparts that do little to enhance the beauty or preservation of a unique heritage, which our elected officials are selling off to the harsh winds of history?
On the eve of Heritage Days, it’s time for everyone to become aware of what’s at stake and to view monuments as places of life and the future—rather than as enclaves of a bygone era that we take an interest in for 48 hours a year and then abandon to the greed of certain predators.
We know what became of the American Indians, now confined to reservations and used as a mere prop in a few Westerns. There are landscapes—which nothing can ever replace—where the heart loves to lose itself and the soul loves to wander.
Is destruction what progress is all about? Henri-Jean ANGLADE