Battle for the Saint Sauveur chapel from 2015

Bon-Sauveur: a coveted chapel

She was promised to the Society of Saint Pius X. But the City exercised its right of pre-emption. A company is fighting to redeem it.

What will become of the Bon-Sauveur chapel?

“I played on the neoclassical organ of this building from 2007 to 2010, remembers Maitre Gervais Marie-Doutressoulle, lawyer at the bar of Caen. I had two objectives in this file: to save the Saint-Sauveur chapel (of the Bon-Sauveur hospital) so that mass could continue to be celebrated there; arrange for the Priestly Society of St. Pius X of Gavrus to acquire it. “For years now, the file of the Bon-Sauveur chapel has been on stand-by.

In the end, the sale of this building goes from twists and turns to legal action. It all started when the Congregation of the Daughters of Bon-Sauveur put up for sale the former psychiatric hospital of Bon-Sauveur, rue Caponière. It includes in particular a chapel listed as a Historic Monument. In 2007, the Caen Caponière company, which specializes in the sale of goods, sent an offer to the Fraternity to acquire this chapel for €350,000. The Fraternity agrees.

Host exhibitions

A problem: 23 June 2011, the Municipality of Duron exercises its right of first refusal on the chapel. It feeds the project to install the National Choreographic Center there. The Fraternity lodged an appeal for annulment before the administrative court in 2012. Appeal dismissed. Just like on appeal to the administrative court of Nantes, in 2014. The chapel had been sold to the City by the company Caen Caponière on 23 September 2013.

In 2010, Maitre Gervais Marie-Doutressoulle entered the dance of potential buyers. Via his real estate civil society of Petit Vivier, the lawyer continues to take action to have the right of preemption broken and to buy “this chapel in order, possibly, to make it available to the Fraternity”.

After losing in the first instance, SCI du Petit Vivier again broke its teeth on appeal. After the hearing on June 30, the judgment of the court was delivered on September 22. It ruled that SCI's request had changed between the two judgments and was therefore inadmissible. “What I dispute”, continues the lawyer who does not exclude to appeal in cassation. Especially since the SCI du Petit Vivier was ordered to pay €15,000 in procedural costs. As for the future function of the building, it could, among other things, host temporary exhibitions.

Contacted, the City did not respond to our request.

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