L'Ombre de l'Olivier

The Shadow of the Olive Tree

being the maunderings of an Englishman on the Côte d'Azur

09 February 2007 Blog Home : February 2007 : Permalink

Ikea Mougins Maybe NON

The news reported in the local France 3 news and at the two French blogs (Pour et Contre) is that the departmental commission for commercial development (CDEC) bottled out and failed to approve the IKEA proposal. The proposal needed 4 positive votes out of 6 to proceed but only received 3 with one against and 2 absentions. Not at all to my surprise the Mayor of Mougins and the Conseil General of Canton de Mougins (the canton is Mougins, Mouans Sartoux, La Roquette & parts of Le Cannet) voted in favour as did the Chairman of the Alpes Maritime Chamber of Commerce and Industry. To my surprise the Mayor of Nice and the head of the local consumer's association abstained. I had assumed that one or both of these two would vote in favour. The vote against was the head of the "Chambre de métiers", which I think is the guilds.

This means I think that they are allowed to resubmit with some changes but they are stuck for a while. I hope the changes involve changing the location to Lingostières, by the airport at Cannes La Bocca/Mandelieu or even firther afield at, say, Fréjus.

IKEA has said in the past that if it they keep on getting stymied here they'll go to Italy. Perhaps this is enough of a stymie and they go there. This will definitely annoy the Mougins elite but probably not bother too many other people (Ventimiglia is just 1 hour or so from here) so it is still a lot closer that the Toulon IKEA (2 hours).



I despise l'Escroc and Vile Pin