Caen: felled lime trees enrage many inhabitants

” How sad ! Trees that had been there since the end of the war. Who have accompanied the joys and sorrows of Caen for all these years. This is the dignity of politicians. This is how they respond to the urgency of the ecological situation… by the chainsaw. Sylvaine, 45, is a resident of Caen. This Tuesday morning, she discovered the slaughter of around forty lime trees, on the Place de la République, one of the most emblematic of the city.

It is for the town hall to prepare here the establishment of a shopping center called “gourmet hall”. “The plan to set up a cinema is also still relevant today. Anyway, all of these trees except for four of them which we will be replanting elsewhere were sick. They were therefore condemned sooner or later ”, justified the mayor, Joël Bruneau, in the wake of the operation.

So many arguments that revolted the municipal opposition. “It’s absolutely unworthy! The mayor had undertaken not to have these trees cut down until justice had decided. However, remedies are still in the hands of the courts. It is a saddening breakthrough. We are angry with this political class which did not understand anything about the stakes of the time and which strives to want to exchange our natural heritage for parking lots and commercial areas ”, thunders Rudy L’Orphelin, EELV municipal councilor. The movement assures that it will maintain its legal remedies.

The mayor, meanwhile, announces a site of excavations prior to the site, “as soon as possible”.