The issue is causing a stir. In Foix in the département of Ariège, a demolition project for six old buildings has aroused the ire of heritage conservationists. As France Bleu reported on Sunday March 6, the buildings are to be demolished to make way for the construction of social housing. To achieve this, the municipality issued a regulation of hazard. This plan outrages several associations, including “Sites et Monuments”, who see it as “a serious attack on the picturesque fabric of these old buildings from the twelfth and eighteenth centuries”.
According to the city council’s decree submitted in March 2020, an architect of the French buildings would have “pointed out the habitability of the houses” on the street side and not on the shore side and clarified that the buildings had no “structural defects”. However, the Regional Directorate for Cultural Affairs has given its approval for the redevelopment of the town centre. The associations for the protection of cultural heritage denounced the “stubbornness of the city administration” and regretted that this urban renewal project “destroys the historic urban setting of Foix”. Currently, the new flats are scheduled to be handed over in the first half of 2024. In order to make one last attempt, the Sites et Monuments association has sent a letter to the Ministry of Culture, hoping that they can “have the works suspended for a year in order to design an alternative project”.