Emmanuel Macron wants to show that the State is committed in the long term to rebuild the valleys devastated by storm Alex on the night of October 2 to 3, 2020. The Head of State is expected this Monday afternoon in Tende, in the valley of La Roya. Elected officials from the Vésubie and Tinée valleys are also invited. The Head of State will recall that 572 million euros in public aid have already been invested : he will first go to the site of a breach on the departmental road 6204 towards Tende, he will then discuss with elected officials and inhabitants of Roya, a border valley with Italy. From a symbolic point of view, the visit of the Head of State is “very important“according to the elected officials of Roya,”the inhabitants expect him to keep his commitments to rebuild“.
“I find that the sites are progressing quickly” proclaims the mayor of Breil
The mayor of Breil-sur-Roya, Sébastien Olharan believes on France Bleu Azur that the department has done a remarkable job to rehabilitate the roads: “if we had been told a year ago that we would be there in 2021 I would not have believed it“. He regrets, however, as a departmental councilor, that the departmental council is spending 283 million euros on work to rebuild the roads and only receives 33 million euros from the state as the solidarity endowment, “the state could do more to help the department“says Sébastien Olharan.
He welcomes the work carried out on the railway line Breil-Tende and Breil-Vintimille, even if the train journey between Breil and Tende is slower than before the storm hit (one hour and a half compared to 30 minutes previously). The town hall of Breil will receive aid of 9.4 million euros from the State under the solidarity endowment, “it is more than what one hoped for the badly affected which were not insured. In total we have for more than 20 million euros of damage “. These uninsured goods are roads, bridges, tracks, parks and gardens and street furniture. The town hall’s ground floor has been renovated and the old Breil bar has been reborn in the form of a chalet.
The two black spots: access to Castérino and the Tende tunnel
Access to the hamlet of Castérino from Tende is still problematic. Access via the RD91 should be restored at the end of next summer, to allow the hotels in this very touristy village, at the entrance to the Vallée des Merveilles, to resume economic activity.
Another important project, that of Tende tunnel which links by road with Italy. A Franco-Italian project entrusted to Anas, Italian manager of transport infrastructure “but who does not move fast enough“according to the mayor of Breil-sur-Roya.
Many local companies that did business with Piedmont are in economic difficulty because they had their suppliers or customers in Italy. I will therefore ask the President of the Republic to classify our devastated valleys as a free zone in order to obtain tax exemptions.
Access to the tunnel was swept away by a large landslide. The French and Italians agreed to build a viaduct in order to span the landslide but it should not be accessible until the end of 2023.
Details of state aid for the affected valleys
The State has already released 572 million euros out of a total of works estimated at 1 billion with in detail:
- -nearly 143 million euros for the solidarity endowment
- 100 million to rebuild resilient and resilient infrastructure
- 50 million reserved for supporting development and attractiveness projects for the valleys
- 60 million credits from the European Union Solidarity Fund
- 100 million euros in VAT compensation funds
- € 120 million from the Barnier fund
The Perthus bridge: link reestablished between Breil and Tende
September 17, the new Perthus bridge has reopened to traffic. A 2.5 million euro project led by the department, this is the first bridge to be completely rebuilt since the storm. It connects Breil to Tende and was expected by the locals. A new bridge, one and a half times longer than the old one, to give more width to the waterway and prevent the bridge from being washed away again in the future in the event of a flood. Four 10-ton steel beams, 24 meters long, had to be transported from Luxembourg to Breil by freight.
The region announced on Monday, the commissioning of a special and direct bus between Tende and Nice which will leave every morning at 6 a.m. from Tende, for an estimated arrival at 8.15 a.m. in Nice. To complete this offer, the TER Tende-Nice will leave one hour earlier, or at 8.49 a.m. instead of 9.49 a.m., starting Monday, January 17.