U Last November 9, one year to the day after being submerged by floods with more than 1.20 meters of waterthe Au gré des wheats bakery in Montreuil-sur-Mer is still standing. It should be reborn at the beginning of 2025 with two locations, Grand’place in Montreuil-sur-Mer and at the entrance of Le Touquet. Also, the company he had to pay 33,600 euros in excess to operate his insurance.
Au Gré des Blés is of course just one example among many others. The CCI of Hauts-de-France estimated the number of companies at 800 affected by floods. In the Pas-de-Calais and a small part of the North, the French Insurance Federation registered at the end of April about 42,000 open claims in the professional field: of this total, 500 more complex files they benefited from more following. As of April 2, the total cost reimbursed by insurance companies was 462 million euros.
“Between January and April, about twenty insurance clinics were held in the most affected areas, a number that had never been such a number.” underlines Yves Lecompte, representative of the Fédération Française des Assurances (FFA) in Hauts-de-France. “We have also anticipated the Baudu law, which came into effect on the 1st January 2024, from the end of 2023, in particular speeding up expert evaluation procedures and emergency deposit payments.
Flood resilience
Florence Bariseau, regional councillor, vice-president in charge of rurality, proximity, solidarity and water policies, gives an update on the the regional aid granted to the small businesses concerned sitting in municipalities classified as in a state of natural disaster: “Across the region, we granted 25 cash flow support loans for a total of one million euros, and 74 companies received Equipment Replacement Assistance (FASE), for a total of 200,000 euros .
A question is now on everyone’s mind: how can we ensure that these flooding episodes do not happen again? In a visit to the flood monitoring committee in Arras on October 7, the Minister of Ecological Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, echoed the words of Xavier Bertrand, president of the Hauts-de-France Regional Council: “In one year, we have done what we have never done before in this area to improve its resistance to floods.”
As for the works, 174 structural works were financed, for a total of 42.2 million euros. They aim both to control water flows upstream (slowing down water flows, increasing water storage capacity, creating flood expansion zones) and to regularly maintain the channels , carrying the sediments that clutter their beds. However, the technical answer requires in-depth studies, but also calls for procurements carried out in accordance with public procurement rules.
In total, 262 million euros of public money have already been mobilized, including more than 116 million euros to the benefit of local communities. Almost 300 communities have also submitted more than 500 applications to finance the concrete operations carried out on the waterways, in addition to more than 3000 repair operations (roads, schools, etc.).
A governance that is struggling to emerge
“State services have made things easier and money has been freed up,” recognizes Allan Turpin, mayor of Andres in the Pas-de-Calais. “But all those who have the expertise in water management are around: before, you could say that there was no funding, but now? I have always denounced a lack of will to invest clearly in infrastructure to fight floods.
The new water governance promised since the floods, in particular the creation of a Territorial Public Establishment of the Basin (EPTB), a joint specialized union managed by the administration, which will bring together the skills of three local unions, is making great progress plain For the mayor of Andres, who created the association Stop Floods Pas-de-Calais “The electorate wants to remain in a pyramidal system, where the largest municipalities reserve the power of decision and where nothing serves the general interest”, added the first counselor.
Frédérique Barbet, assistant to the director of the Intercommunal Institution of ” aquariums » is not of this opinion: “The three unions have existed for twenty years and have a certain know-how: the EPTB does not do work, it provides coordination and engineering. Everyone is today around the table to decide how to act on a regional scale. A study is planned for next year.” The fact remains that winter has not yet passed, while the last recorded floods 1.5 times greater than the centennial flood. The episode “extraordinary” the floods unfortunately risk becoming“ordinary”.
