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Basque bother for Brits - 20 August 2007

One of the biggest social issues of the boom in second home ownership is the effect of rising prices on the prospects for local people to buy in their ‘own’ area. This is by no means limited to overseas property purchases, as is being seen in particular in the South West of England, but it is an issue which highlights the effects of UK buyer snapping up what they see as undervalued properties.

The increasing numbers of British buyers who have are pushing up the price of properties in rural corners of foreign lands have always created a degree of friction with the local population, but in the mountainous border regions of France’s Basque country, things have gone a step further. Recent incidents have seen arson attacks on properties owned by British citizens, which are later daubed with slogans in Basque and French declaring that the Basque country is not for sale.

A report in this weekend’s Guardian detailed the case of an attack in the mountain village of Aussurucq, in which a mill property owned by an English couple who had lovingly restored it from a state of ruin was gutted by a fire allegedly set by local militants. Other stories have emerged of bombs left outside the offices of estate agents and holiday homes as those in the poorest mountain regions complain of being priced out of the market by foreigners and property speculators.

The Basque population is known to jealously protect their language, culture and way of life, and the well-known struggles of ETA to secure a separate Basque state across northern Spain and the South West of France have claimed many lives in the past. However, this wave of attacks marks something of a turning point by targeting individual houses as opposed to more general public attacks.

While there is little doubt that rising property prices make it more difficult for local young people to buy their first home in the area, the waters of the debate are muddied somewhat by the fact that many of the population are profiting by selling their properties for what could be considered inflated prices to buyers with more money to spend than most of the buyers who live locally.

Those who oppose the ‘invasion’ of foreign buyers see the climbing property prices as killing small villages by forcing young people to move away to bigger conurbations in order to find an affordable property. On the other hand, some locals welcome the newcomers, saying they are bringing life and younger people back to the area after many years of outward migration of young people in search of jobs.

One elderly neighbour of the couple who lost their house in Aussurucq to the arsonists said, “I always thought they were brave to buy in an isolated spot that is dark at night. I’m one quarter Basque and even I feel like a foreigner here. But when I sell my own house, I’ll take the highest bidder.”

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