He wants an investment of €10 billion from firms wishing to build the parks. But experts doubt that they will ever deliver enough electricity to offset the visual damage done and opposition to similar parks is now growing all over the country, with more than 700 organisations opposing the proliferation of wind turbines.

In Dieppe and Le Tréport, a four-month public debate began last September to try to achieve some kind of compromise between the government and local fishermen, elected officers, and environmentalists. But now that the President has given the green light to the first wave of investors who want to tender, opposition has increased.

Even though the turbines will be 10km or so offshore, and will simply look like large matchsticks on the horizon, residents in Dieppe, Le Tréport and Fécamp, which is also affected, are furious. In the latest plans, it is estimated that 142 windmills of 5MW each, 14km from Le Tréport, would provide 900,000 people with electricity.

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