Two meetings at the antipodes this Friday morning. While the managers of the Vallauris-Golfe-Juan aquaculture farm were defending their extension file in the prefecture, elected officials from all sides and local fishermen had made an appointment with the press, at the same time, to mark their opposition to a project considered “pharaonic”.
Based in this seaside resort near the Croisette, Aquafrais Cannes currently operates five breeding sites on the coast of the Alpes-Maritimes, from Antibes to Theoule-sur-Mer for an annual production of 570 tons of sea bass and sea bream. It wishes to rationalize its equipment by closing three of its farms but by acquiring a new structure of 24,000 m2 off Golfe Juan, to reach 1,200 tonnes.
Cages “under which nothing grows again”
“We are not against aquaculture. It is not an ideological position. We are here to say that it is simply unreasonable, ”launched Kevin Luciano, the various right-wing mayor of Vallauris-Golfe-Juan, who spoke with other elected officials from the “fisherman’s bench” of his commune. . MEP EELV Caroline Roose, Senator Philippe Tabarot and MP Eric Pauget (LR) were at his side to also mark their frank opposition to the project.
They are concerned about the economic impact of such an extension “on artisanal fishing” but above all its “environmental consequences”. “There is the problem of the excrement of these fish which will be bred en masse in cages under which, for lack of light, nothing grows back”, denounced Caroline Roose.
A density of 10 kg of fish per cubic meter
The general manager of Aquafrais, Jérôme Hémar, who opened the doors of his head office to 20 minutes this Friday, ensures for its part that the quality of the project has been “recognized” by the Regional Mission of environmental authority. According to a notice published in October, the future farm, imagined since 2017 and the takeover of this operation launched 35 years ago and which was then in receivership, is located in an area “conducive” to aquaculture. .
“The site will be environmentally friendly. It will have a limited footprint of 24,000 m2, less than that already existing off Golfe-Juan, of 30,000 m2, since we are playing on the depth of the nets, explains the manager. All with a density of 10 kg of fish per m3, well below the regional regulation of 40 kg per m3.
“Golfe-Juan bay is already sick”
While the company Aquafrais assures that its project will make it possible to offer local production in short circuits and that it will create twenty jobs in addition to the 35 existing ones, the elected EELV Caroline Rosse judges for her part that “it is small-scale fishing which develops employment and not these aquaculture farms”.
“The bay of Golfe-Juan, with all that is happening there and in particular yachting, especially in summer, is already sick. That will contaminate the whole environment and it will reduce our fields of action, explained on the spot Patrick Wolff, first prud’homme of Golfe-Juan. We are not at all against reasoned and artisanal aquaculture. But this is industrial. Like what is done in Norway. We are whistleblowers. In a petition which has already collected 2,300 signatures, local fishermen denounce this project of “megastructure whose dimensions are equivalent to three football stadiums on the surface and fifteen on the bottom”. They say they are ready for other actions to make it fail.
The public inquiry opened within the framework of this file will close on February 22 and it is the maritime prefecture which will give its approval, or not. Requested by 20 minutesshe indicates that a decision would be made within a few months, a priori before the end of the year.