Faced with the risk of submersion and erosion along their coastlines, both France and the Netherlands have long relied on the introduction of ‘hard’ protection measures to tackle sea level rise. However, this approach has gradually begun to be reconsidered due to the adverse side-effects and decreased effectiveness that such protection measures may have in light of the increasingly significant impact of climate change on shorelines. New policy instruments such as nature-based solutions (NBSs) need to be found, but a lack of funding, resistance from local actors, and high population densities often impede the implementation of these instruments. While path-dependent solutions tend to be favoured in the short-term, more radical solutions such as managed retreat could prove necessary in the long run.