France / coastline : 55 additional communes on the list of areas subject to coastal erosion

From 25/08 to 15/09/2025, the French Ministry of Regional Planning and Decentralisation is putting out to consultation an order amending the list of municipalities whose town planning and development policies must be adapted to the hydrosedimentary phenomena leading to coastal erosion.

55 new municipalities have been added to this list, which will now comprise 372 municipalities.

These areas benefit from the measures for adapting coastal areas to the retreat of the coastline, introduced by the Climate and Resilience Act, which provides for a series of tools to trigger local adaptation processes: specific right of pre-emption, mobilisation of public land establishments, real lease for adaptation to coastal erosion (BRAEC), possibility of derogating from certain rules of the French Littoral law...

These municipalities must also draw up a local map of exposure to coastline retreat over a 30 and 100 years timeframe and incorporate it into their town planning document. The Ministry states that the State and its operators (Cerema and BRGM) will provide support, such as: "publication of…