It is one of the largest megalithic sites in the world. One of the best known also with Stonehenge. On a surface of a little more than four kilometers long, the site of Carnac, in Morbihan, shelters an alignment of nearly 3,000 old menhirs of 7,000 years. A place with an exceptional cultural heritage, but which today finds itself in turmoil after the revelations of West France. To make way for a DIY store currently under construction, 39 menhirs have indeed been destroyed in the Chemin de Montauban area. “It was undoubtedly one of the oldest sets of stelae in the town of Carnac”, chokes Christian Obeltz.
Passionate about archeology, it was he who gave the alert on Friday in a post published on the website of the Sites et Monuments association. “Yves Coppens must be turning in his grave: several brutal developments have been carried out, this winter and spring, near the alignments of Carnac, distorting this world-famous site”, he denounces. He cites as an example the building permit issued last summer by the town hall of Carnac for the establishment of the Mr Bricolage brand in an area whose historical interest was nevertheless known. This same sector was also on the indicative list in the registration file for the alignments of Carnac as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which must be submitted to the Ministry of Culture at the end of September.
A first building permit refused
How then to explain this sacrifice of 39 menhirs? In a press release written with the prefecture of Morbihan and the Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs (Drac) of Brittany, the town hall of Carnac explains that the project leader had already submitted a building permit application in 2014 for a supermarket in this same area. . “As the project is located near a preventive excavation that delivered Neolithic remains in 2009, the realization of a preliminary archaeological diagnosis was prescribed on December 22, 2014 by the Drac Bretagne”, explains the Breton municipality.
Conducted in March 2015, this operation did not lead to the discovery of any archaeological remains. The Inrap report all the same evoked the probable presence of an alignment of menhirs without this hypothesis “being formally established at this stage. » The building permit had finally been revoked and « no follow-up given by the contracting authority to the prescription for excavations issued by the Drac. »
Eight years later, the same project leader came back with a new building permit for the same location. “As part of the town planning instruction and the regulatory documents in force, this file has been the subject of a meticulous examination by the services of the DRAC, specifies the mayor of Carnac. The investigation of this file was therefore carried out with the greatest rigour. “An answer that will hardly satisfy Christian Obeltz who recalls in the columns of West France that “the law is formal” and that “any destruction of an archaeological site is punishable by a heavy fine. »