“The mountain moves, the forest burns”. The mayor of Saint-Gervais Jean-Marc Peillex sent a letter to Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday. A “plea” in which he alerts the President of the Republic to the need to save natural spaces. “Whether it is Mont-Blanc, the mountains of Corsica, the gorges of the Ardèche, the cliffs of Etretat, renowned seaside resorts or other famous sites in France (…) each of its places suffers from the damaging and too often destructive consequences of overcrowding”, raises the elected official before attacking “many events” such as the ultra-trail of Mont-Blanc “with a catastrophic carbon footprint”.
You sent a letter of request to Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday, what do you concretely expect from the President of the Republic?
I expect the State to play its role and to set the framework for the necessary regulation in natural areas, whatever they may be. Today, we have an overconsumption of natural spaces, we have an attractiveness multiplied by x since the end of the Covid epidemic. We deliver nature to people who do not have the codes and who are in the process of completely destroying the natural environment. I had already challenged the president on Mont-Blanc. This led to him coming to Saint-Gervais and his decision to find rules to protect Mont-Blanc, which was done on October 1, 2020. So it’s not a question of saying: “I want to ban or reserve the space for a few”. Today, we do not need a national rule that establishes quotas but we need the State to set limits. The natural environment is suffering, in particular because of the drought. For example, we are not going to multiply ultra-trails everywhere. We are not going to multiply the presence of tens of thousands of people in sites where there is no water. I’m going to be vulgar, but we have to get out of this bogus reasoning which consists in waving the flag of freedom, which consists in saying that the sea and the mountains are spaces of freedom where we have the right to do anything.
Among those you are targeting, there is the UTMB (ultra-trail du Mont-Blanc): what exactly do you blame the organizers for?
First, it is a commercial enterprise. We are no longer on the associative race of the beginning. We have an organization that is making money, that has been sold and that needs to do business. Besides, they don’t just do the UTMB in Chamonix, they organize ultra trails all over the world. It’s no limit. This year, when the mountain was in a state of drought and the fauna and flora suffered, there was no adaptation. None. No resilience, no consideration of the environment. On the contrary, we continued to act as if nothing had changed. That’s what I blame. The ultra-trail is a great race, the athletes are magnificent, but at some point you have to set a limit.
In your opinion, what should have been done this summer?
Edit routes. We know how to do it when the weather is bad. We know how to stop races when there is a storm or a landslide, why not do it in case of drought? Because there is money there. Registrations are expensive, it’s business! So, I’m not against business, I’m simply saying that it’s up to the public authority to say where the limits are. But it is not up to the organizers to fix them.
But this event brings money to the municipality?
This does not bring money to the municipality, it costs because we give them subsidies. All our technical teams take one or even two days to set everything up. In terms of return, there is only for the commune of Chamonix. Whether it is Contamines-Montjoie, Saint-Gervais or Les Houches, there is no fallout. On the other hand, it pays off for traders, restaurants and cafeterias because, for a few hours, they make a very nice recipe. The UTMB is 10,000 people running, 20,000 to 30,000 companions, 50,000 at the “slipper lounge” [le salon des marques]. At some point it has to stop.
Why wouldn’t the solution be to ban these events?
Because I’m not for the ban. Prohibition is extreme unction. We prohibit when we are not able to regulate. However, we are still at a stage, and this is what I say to the President of the Republic, where we can act to allow everyone to benefit from it. When you go to the Louvres and there are no more places, you don’t go in. When we go to the Eiffel Tower, if there are no more places, we don’t visit it. It’s the same there. The mountain, the natural environment must be subject to regulation. Same thing for the races. There are times when you can’t do them. But I am not for a ban. Prohibiting is the dictatorship of living room ecologists.
In your letter, you criticize environmental lobbies. Who are you targeting in particular?
The environmental associations that you never find when you have to protect the environment. I campaigned for seventeen years for Mont-Blanc. But before being heard by a President of the Republic, who supported me? France environment, the Frapna of the time? EELV? Not a word. They are environmental bourgeois. They played their role at one time but today, we have all become reasonable. So, the guilt givers, it’s over. We must move to a positive and rewarding ecology and stop denouncing anyone or anything.
You talk about overcrowding in natural spaces since the lifting of health restrictions: can we have an estimate of the number of people who went to Mont-Blanc this summer?
On Mont-Blanc, the work has been done. The number of people is limited to the capacity of the refuges. Either you have the physical training and you do the round trip in the day, or you don’t and you need a reservation. We no longer have the overcrowding of before. We managed to pacify Mont-Blanc. Today is peaceful. In the shelters, we found the atmosphere, people no longer steal equipment whereas before it was a mess, a mess. Today, let’s take Mont-Blanc as an example and go further. Let’s try not to massacre sites that are fragile.