Washimgton Post:

MONT-SAINT-MICHEL, France — Over the centuries, this iconic shrine on the Normandy coast has seen more than its share of battles. The latest skirmish involves not knights in shining armor, but opposing camps of environmentalists, jousting over the wisdom of installing windmill farms on nearby hillsides to turn sea breezes into clean energy. Although played out in a medieval setting, it is a conflict of the times — and in many ways a struggle between two good causes. On one side are those who want to reduce carbon emissions by drawing electricity out of wind. On the other stand equally dedicated ecologists who say the sight of 21st-century windmills churning above the tidal flats around Mont-Saint-Michel would detract from one of the world’s most striking and best-known monuments. “Mont-Saint-Michel represents 13 centuries of history,” said Corinne Gressier, a nurse who lives in the ridge-top village of Argouges, where some of the disputed windmills would rise. “Excuse me, but if we can’t prevent this site from being ruined, I don’t know what to tell you.” The project has the support of local officials and President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government. For these advocates of the environment, it would be a worthy contribution to France’s program to expand its 2,500 windmills producing 4,500 megawatts a year to 8,500 producing 25,000 megawatts by 2020. A push to curb climate change by slashing carbon emissions has gained ground across Europe. In December, the European Union adopted stringent goals to limit greenhouse gases. Last week, it recommended that its 27 member countries invest an additional $70 billion in clean energy over the next decade, including tripling windmill construction to produce up to 20 percent of Europe’s electricity. But the potential political impact of environmental concerns has become particularly clear in France, where Green party candidates did surprisingly well in European elections in June. Since then, Sarkozy has intensified efforts to identify his center-right government with environmental themes, seeking to lure Green voters from their natural alliance with the opposition Socialists. The activists here have no quarrel with the quest for clean energy, but, they argue, putting windmills on the ridgeline above Mont-Saint-Michel is not the way to do it. Backed by allies around the country, they have mounted a campaign to prove that the windmills — even at 10 miles away — would desecrate the vista for the more than 3 million visitors who come every year to admire the rock-top monastery rising from tidewater more than 500 feet into the sky.