Over 50,000 residents could be forced to move as rising sea levels threaten French coastline

Experts say thousands of people could be affected by rising sea levels as beaches on the French coastline disappear at the rate of 2.5 metres per year 

Rising sea levels are creating a major threat for people residing on the French coastline, as experts warn that thousands of people will have to move inland in the coming decades.  

The erosion of the French coastline is now being recorded at an alarming level of 2.5 metres every year, as all the country’s beaches are under threat from erosion and increased vulnerability.  

“We estimate that some 50,000 residences are in zones that will require them to be moved by the end of the century. All of France’s coasts are under threat, and sandy coastlines more than rocky ones”, said Adrien Privat, an official at the French coast protection agency Conservatoir du Littoral, cited by Reuters. 

Privat added, “Global warming was having a major impact as higher average sea levels exacerbate other factors that cause erosion and make shorelines more vulnerable to storms”. 

Referring to Soulac-sur-Mer, in southwest France, where people have already had to move and a building called Le Signal near the beach is being demolished, Privat said, “Ever-rising sea levels and increasingly violent storms made it impossible to let people live in Le Signal without costly shore protection measures that could also have negatively impacted nearby shorelines”.  

 “Long expropriation procedures and the struggle to finance an environmentally sound demolition was a necessary rehearsal for things to come”, he added.  

Comparing Soulac-sur-Mer´s example with the rest of the French coastline, the official said that this is “a warning for what could happen in other zones and for the need to prepare for it now”.

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