Tensions into the village: mechanisms for preventing conflicts caused by the establishment of solar plants in Provence (France)

While the Provence region experienced strong opposition to the installation of large infrastructures in natural areas in the early 1990's, the development of solar plants in the mid-2000's not aroused many conflicting reactions. To explain this contrast, the author draws up an inventory of the projects and actors involved in the photovoltaic sector. Then, he documents the processes of elaboration of six particular projects, looking at the political history of the commune, the transformations of the population and the recent experiences of spatial planning are taken into account by the actors involved in the promotion of solar plants. The analysis of these materials reveals an intertwining of local phenomena of reduction conflicting risks. In first, these are the result of the local invention of the application of a national public policy of supervision of this sector and learning that is required of the actors of solar companies and local authorities in search of an attractive and stable regulatory framework. Secondly, these phenomena refer to the discussion spaces that are activated at the municipal level to adjust projects to representations of populations, whether in the office of the mayor, before the municipal council or at a public meeting. These discussion spaces provide resources for projects in a residential development context which have to preserve the singularity of the territory attraction. The strong development of solar plants in Provence and the low level of conflictuality observed thus express the way in which the injunction to sustainable development is actualized in territories with a low population density: as a social compromise conciliating space heritage and need for equipment due to the urban experience of part of this population. (author)