Françoise Rosenzweig and Sylvain Legagneur remember May 11, 2022 well. That evening, in the village hall of Mont-Saxonnex (Haute-Savoie), they saw three Parisian consultants from Ernst & Young arrive – suit and tie, Sciences Po and Essec profile –, computer under the arm. This retired teacher and this mountain guide had come, like sixty people from this village of 1,700 inhabitants, to attend a workshop on the tourist future of their territory.
The framework was set: the small ski resort in the village, which extends between 1,000 and 1,500 meters above sea level, is experiencing serious financial difficulties, with increasingly uncertain attendance and snow cover. So, you have to imagine what’s next. Tobogganing, zip line, cross-country skiing? These two Ernst & Young evenings, financed by the State, were to allow the inhabitants to express their ideas.
“The first day, we played the game, it was interesting… But on the second day, we felt that the consultants had their idea of what to offer. Above all, the future of the Cenise plateau was omnipresent in the conversations »recalls Françoise Rosenzweig.
Faltering economy
The Cenise plateau? In just a few months, this site, located at an altitude of 1,700 meters above Mont-Saxonnex, has acquired a notoriety that goes beyond the mountains of the Bargy range. Walked by hikers, populated in summer by herds of cows producing milk for Reblochon cheese, this virgin space has become one of the new symbols of the tensions that run through mountain resorts. Conflicts of a new kind which oppose those who want to stop the development of infrastructures and limit tourist frequentation, and those who want to consolidate, or imagine profitable alternatives to the faltering economy of alpine skiing.
In the massifs, these crises are multiplying: in La Clusaz, a ZAD (“zone to defend”) was formed to protest against the construction of a hill reservoir, intended, among other things, to supply the snow cannons; in Villard-de-Lans (Isère), residents are mobilizing against the construction of two hotel residences; in Semnoz (Haute-Savoie), others are fighting to prevent the construction of a drinking water network to the summit of the mountain, refusing any form of development of the site; in La Grave (Hautes-Alpes), a collective is trying to prevent the construction of a section of the gondola up to 3,600 meters…
“It’s a plateau that has value precisely because it’s wild. At the environmental level, this idea is madness » Loïc Hervé, senator (UDI)
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