Two rooms, two atmospheres. For several months and the announcement of the desire of the Le Duff group to set up in Liffré, opponents and supporters of the project have continued to make their arguments heard. It is in this town located north-east of Rennes that the industrial bakery empire has decided to set up the new factory for its Bridor brand. Specialized in making breads and pastries, the company will need 20 ha of land located in the inter-municipal activity zone called “Sévailles 2”. To enable everyone to learn about the project and express their opinion, a public inquiry opened on February 21 and runs until March 23.
On this site located close to the Rennes Caen strategic axis, the manufacturer has promised to create 500 jobs by 2030. An argument that convinced the elected officials of Liffré-Cormier Community, who support the project. Loïg Chesnais-Girard, who was mayor of Liffré for a long time before becoming president of the Brittany region, agrees. “We are keeping a very close eye on this project and the public inquiry should allow everyone to find out. We need to integrate the challenges of sustainable development and Bridor will have to respond to them. But I am also proud that worker jobs are maintained in the territory, ”assures the socialist president of the region.
An area of activity identified as strategic
Faced with a scarcity of agricultural land, the communities located around the Breton capital are called upon to exercise the greatest sobriety in their use of natural spaces. Several territories have already refused the arrival of large logistics platforms that consume too much land. In Liffré, the situation is different, since the activity zone has been identified among the 13 strategic development sites defined in the Territorial Coherence Plan (Scot) of the Pays de Rennes. The place is therefore allowed to be urbanized for economic purposes.
A choice that does not digest the environmental senator Daniel Salmon, a fervent opponent of the Bridor project. “It is a factory of a certain gigantism which plans to export throughout France and even internationally. It is an above-ground economy, a harmful project from all points of view! It is not because Mr. Le Duff is of Breton origin that he can settle where he wants, ”tackles the senator. The local elected officials of La France insoumise share the same observation and are asking for the project to be abandoned.
The other sites would already be saturated
This project, estimated at 250 million euros, aims to “strengthen the current production capacities” of the Servon-sur-Vilaine (Ille-et-Vilaine) and Louverné (Mayenne) factories “which have reached their development capacity “, according to Bridor. The plot identified for the establishment has the particularity of sheltering a wetland. When asked, Bridor’s management did not wish to answer our questions. In the public inquiry file, the Le Duff group company had responded to the concerns of the Local Water Commission by promising to maintain areas of high ecological interest and to preserve “as much as possible” the green spaces in place. Bridor will also have to carry out compensation measures as provided for by law, in particular by replanting trees and creating wetlands. Insufficient for opponents.
Of the 20 hectares of the site, six will house buildings, five will be devoted to circulation and parking and ten will be maintained as green spaces and areas reserved for the purification and treatment of rainwater. The question of water particularly worries the opponents, who take a dim view of the annual consumption of 200,000 m³ of water per year announced by the factory. “In a territory that is affected by droughts, it is inconsistent. This economic model has shown its limits. Bridor is blackmailing the job. But for what kind of jobs? I am not sure that they are at the service of the well-being of employees. A job created here will destroy jobs elsewhere,” complains Senator Daniel Salmon. If it gets the green light from the authorities, Bridor hopes to start production of its pastries in 2024 on this site.