The judgments rendered on June 25 by the Dijon administrative court put an end to part of the litigation initiated around the ancient rampart of Boulevard Mac-Mahon, in Autun (Saône-et-Loire). Without determining who owns this portion of the wall, the judges consider that it constitutes an “accessory to the public highway”: its presence protecting the boulevard located below, the responsibility of the City is engaged as manager of this public work. Three of the five decisions rendered having not been the subject of an appeal, they are now final and give the municipality a legal basis to initiate reconstruction.
A first portion of the rampart collapsed on December 6, 2010. The administrative court noted in particular the fragility of the structure, reworked and raised several times since modern times, as well as the absence, in its oldest part, of devices allowing the evacuation of infiltration water. The judges also noted that the work carried out in 2007 in the Gislebertus garden, at the foot of the cathedral, had increased the runoff of rainwater towards the area. In March 2020, new disorders led a legal expert to note a “very imminent and particularly dangerous danger” and to recommend security work.
The dispute was notably brought before the administrative court of Dijon in 2017 by Renaud Abord de Châtillon, owner of the Hôtel d’Eguilly, adjoining the rampart. The town hall, which then considered him the owner of the wall, had given him notice to carry out work there. Contesting this quality, Renaud Abord de Châtillon also questioned the municipality, the State and Frédéric Didier, chief architect of historical monuments responsible for the work carried out in 2007 around the cathedral.
In 2018, the administrative court stayed its ruling and referred a preliminary question to the judicial court in order to determine the ownership of the wall. After several procedural steps, the Lyon judicial court ruled, on November 5, 2025, that the section of rampart bordering the Hôtel d’Eguilly did not belong to Renaud Abord de Châtillon, without however naming its owner.
In another aspect of the case, the administrative court of Dijon condemned the State, the commune of Autun and Frédéric Didier in solidum to pay 123,000 euros to Renaud Abord de Châtillon. Of this sum, 90,000 euros correspond to the loss of use of the property, in particular the impossibility of occupying it normally and the significant deterioration in the enjoyment of the garden; 10,000 euros were awarded for moral damage and disturbances in his living conditions.
The complexity of the file is due in particular to the land tenure of the Autun fortifications. In a response published in June to a parliamentary question, the Ministry of Culture recalled that the plots supporting the ramparts belong to multiple owners: municipalities, individuals or companies. Some portions are classified as historic monuments, others only listed.
The section of Mac-Mahon Boulevard being part of the protected ramparts, the State intervened in April 2020 through the Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs of Burgundy-Franche-Comté. Emergency stabilization work was then carried out, in particular by installing supports, for an amount of around 100,000 euros covered by the State.
