At the foot of her lemon tree, Josette Ournac can’t maintain again her tears. She has simply dug the earth and contemplates her 950 sq. meter plot: the rows of artichokes, leeks and cauliflowers, the almond timber in flower, the bench the place she sunbathes. In this backyard inherited from her grandparents, she harvests each recollections and meals to feed her youngsters and grandchildren. “It’s my paradise on earth and they want to take it away from me. I’m slowly dying.”confides this 91-year-old woman with white hair. For the first time in her life, she says, she took antidepressants. “And yet, I have experienced some hard blows. »
Josette Ournac is one of the 44 owners of 51 plots of land subject to an expropriation order in Gruissan, in Aude, near Narbonne. At the origin of the measurement, the construction of a neighborhood of 730 housing units on a 32-hectare natural area, La Sagne. Supported by the mayor, Didier Codorniou (Radical Left Party), the project ignites the municipal election campaign. Its slogan promising to make the city the first car-free seaside resort also fuels tensions. A summary of the tensions and contradictions that run through the ecological transition.
“The Sagne project has fractured the village”regrets Michel Blanc, head of one of many two opposition lists, which desires to be apolitical. Around the world, banners and indicators are flourishing: “Stop concrete”, “Yes to vegetables, no to bitumen”. The mayor, who acknowledges a topic ” delicate “says he found his house sprayed with insults. On both sides, weariness dominates after more than ten years of conflict.
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https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2026/03/05/municipales-a-gruissan-la-construction-d-un-ecoquartier-dans-une-zone-naturelle-revele-les-contradictions-de-la-transition-ecologique_6669637_823448.html