Island sees first birth for 35 years

A BABY has been born on the Ile de Sein for the first time since 1978.

The little girl, named Emilie, was born on Sunday, the local mayor and the doctor who helped at the birth have announced.

Mayor Jean-Pierre Kerloc’h said it was exceptional – they had an ageing population and he was more used to attending funerals.

The mother, who already had three other children, had wanted a birth on the island, off the coast of Finistère, as opposed to on the mainland which is the more usual choice.

The news has pleased residents of the commune, which has only 215 inhabitants and was recently stated by a judge in Montpellier to be a “relatively hostile” environment for children and hard to access because of “its insularity and the tides”.

Speaking in the context of a custody dispute, one of the parties’ lawyers even reportedly called the Ile-de-Sein “isolated, without running water or electricity or cars; a dangerous island where the inhabitants get about on foot with little carts”.

Mr Kerloc’h wrote to the court objecting that the island had no safety problems and had facilities including a primary school and collège (which have seven pupils each), shops and a doctor’s surgery and was 20 minutes from Brest hospital by helicopter. What is more, some leading scientists had grown up there, he said.

Photo: Sxilderik/ Wikimedia Commons