Mont St-Michel

Le Mont-Saint-Michel (Saint Michael's Mount) is a rocky tidal island and a commune in Normandy, France. It is located approximately one kilometre off the country's north coast, at the mouth of the Couesnon River near Avranches. The population of the island is 41.

Mont-Saint-Michel was previously connected to the mainland via a thin natural land bridge, which before modernization was covered at high tide and revealed at low tide. This has been compromised by several developments. Over the centuries, the coastal flats have been polderised to create pasture. Thus the distance between the shore and the south coast of Mont-Saint-Michel has decreased. The Couesnon River has been canalised, reducing the flow of water and thereby encouraging a silting-up of the bay. In 1879, the land bridge was fortified into a true causeway. This prevented the tide from scouring the silt round the mount.

On 16 June 2006, the French prime minister and regional authorities announced a €164 million project to build a hydraulic dam using the waters of the river Couesnon and of tides that will help remove the accumulated silt deposited by the uprising tides, and to make Mont-Saint-Michel an island again. It is expected to be completed by 2012.

The construction of the dam is now complete, but the project also includes the destruction of the causeway that was built on top of the small land bridge and enlarged, to join the island to the continent, but also used as a parking for visitors. It will be replaced by an elevated light bridge, under which the waters will flow more freely, and that will improve the efficiency of the now operational dam, and the construction of another parking on the continent. Visitors will have to use small shuttles to cross the future bridge which will be still open to walking people and unmotorized cycles.