“Mr. Director of Orange, could you not give us a special island rate? » At a table, at the end of a sunny afternoon in May, on the quay of Port Tudy, Dominique Yvon, the mayor of Groix (Morbihan), has a teasing mood. In a few days, ” the rock “ will become the first Breton island connected to the mainland by fiber optic. Its 2,250 citizens will finally be able to benefit from a real high-speed Internet connection. And too bad if Damien de Kerhor, the regional director of Orange in Brittany, showers the tariff hopes of the councilor in a burst of complicit laughter: it’s time for celebration on the island. “We’ve been waiting for the fiber for years”breathes Mr. Yvon.
On May 5, a cable 7.5 kilometers long and 120 millimeters in diameter was to emerge from the transparent waters of one of the island’s coves. Carefully deposited by 35 meters deep between Lorient and Groix by the Pierre-de-Fermat, one of Orange Marine’s six cable ships, this cable of more than 220 tonnes, built in France by Prysmian at its site in Amfreville (Calvados) and then assembled in Germany, is one of a kind. In one piece, it combines three 20,000 volt electrical conductors and forty-eight pairs of optical fibers in the same sheath.
“He brings Groix into the 21stand century “appreciates Mr. Yvon, whose father, Joseph, was mayor of the island between 1971 and 1989. The laying of this umbilical cord, co-financed by Enedis and Orange, for a total cost of 4 million euros, of which 88 % at the expense of the electricity group, gives hope for a new golden age.
Europe’s leading tuna port until the early 1940s, Groix allowed itself to be overwhelmed by its continental neighbours. The island now only has a handful of tuna boats, whereas in the good old days, more than 300 ships colored its ports. But with tourism and then the upheavals caused by the Covid-19, Groix wants to believe in a renewal.
“Gain additional teleworkers”
Expected in the coming days, the results of the latest census should reveal the very first increase in the population of the island in a century, which still had more than 3,100 inhabitants in the early 1970s. “Groix could be the only island on the Channel-Atlantic coast in this situation”underlines Dominique Yvon, mayor since 2014, after having been so for the first time between 1989 and 2001. An additional kindergarten class has already been opened in 2021 and the town hall has invested 600,000 euros in the construction of a house for assistants kindergartens.
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