Imagine a current of 400,000 volts passing a little more than a meter under your feet. This is what the inhabitants of five municipalities in the Landes should experience. Their cities are on the route of the electrical interconnection project between France and Spain. Some protest against this high voltage line.
Connect the electricity networks of France and Spain, to exchange more energy. This is the promise of the RTE project, in the Bay of Biscay, on a 400 km route. Very high voltage lines buried at sea, with a small detour underground. 5,000 MW of energy transported, equivalent to the consumption of 5 million households. Some residents are worried about the environment and their health. The future interconnection line extends from the Cubnezais station in Gironde to the Gatika station in Spain. In order to circumvent the Gouf de Capbreton, a very deep underwater canyon, the electric cables will have to cross five municipalities of the Landes: Seignosse, Soorts-Hossegor, Angresse, Benesse-Marenne, Capbreton.
To bury the lines underground, 1.5 hectares of forest would have to be razed, in particular to dig trenches, as in a very busy wood, where residents jog and cycle. For a collective of inhabitants, the decision was taken, they say, “in defiance of the environment”. The future very high voltage underground line, scheduled for 2027, will pass close to campsites, cycle paths, and sometimes less than 100 meters from homes.
AT Cabreton, a couple bought a farm and land to set up a farm there three years ago. At the time they didn’t know anything about the project, they didn’t know that the line would pass very close to their plot. Do the magnetic fields generated by very high voltage lines have effects on humans? When contacted, the RTE project director specified that the risk was theoretical, with much more powerful magnetic fields. But the danger would be non-existent here for the population.
