- A decree is being drafted to preserve the Mont-Blanc massif, in Haute-Savoie, on the decision of Emmanuel Macron.
- This text, almost completed, should be signed by the prefect in the fall.
- 20 Minutes asked the mayor of Saint-Gervais, Jean-Marc Peillex, about the new measures that will frame the activities in this massif.
Since the heat wave of 2003, which had lifted the veil, at high altitude, on the calamitous state of the mountain, it has established itself as one of the most fervent defenders of Mont-Blanc. A fight that still drives him seventeen years later and that he is about to win, with the establishment, planned for the fall, of a prefectural order aimed at preserving the Mont-Blanc massif. The day after a new meeting in the Haute-Savoie prefecture to finalize this document intended to frame the activities that will be authorized on the highest summit in Western Europe, 20 Minutes questioned Jean-Marc Peillex (DvD). The mayor of Saint-Gervais, recently re-elected, explains to us what will change in the coming months in the massif.
Does the order in preparation follow the arrival of Emmanuel Macron this winter on the sea of ice?
Yes. If we do a little history, last September, after all that we have seen on Mont-Blanc in recent years [rower, jacuzzi, concerts ...] and that I was the only one to denounce, I I wrote to the President of the Republic to tell him: "It is indeed the Amazon, but we should also take care of Mont-Blanc". As he is a reactive person, he reacted and entrusted the file to Emmanuelle Wargon, the Secretary of State to the Minister for the Ecological and Inclusive Transition. She brought us together with the mayor of Chamonix. This culminated in the arrival of Emmanuel Macron on February 13. He is the only one who respects his word. Holland, Sarkozy and Chirac, I saw them and they never did anything for Mont-Blanc. When he came, he announced that we were going to make a decree to protect natural habitats. Emmanuelle Wargon proposed a text. We are in the 18th version. It is therefore a work almost completed which was presented Monday.
What will change at the top of Mont-Blanc?
This is the end of the rule "in the name of freedom we let everything do", including what was prohibited by the texts. Mont-Blanc is protected, it is a classified site. Camping, for example, is prohibited. And yet, we have tolerated camping for years around the Goûter refuge. Five years ago, we had pitched up to 90 tents, or 180 people, when that was prohibited. For decades, everyone has veiled their faces. We made texts and nobody applied them in the name of this principle according to which the mountain is an area of freedom. But as we went too far, as the guardian of the refuge almost got his face broken, as there was an overcrowding of the summit, people started to say that we could no longer continue like this. And there was a shift in awareness. But until 2018-2019, I found myself well alone.
Do you see your battle ending?
When you have been fighting for seventeen years and you reach the goal, of course it is the consecration. But it is not the consecration of a person but of a fight. It is the end of something and the beginning of something else. My fight has never been to want to make sacred and to prohibit but to find a rule of balance. To leave in the mountains only the trace of our steps. It's about saying yes, we have a mountain that we have to respect. But no, it is not a question of prohibiting everything, as has been done in certain countries of the Himalayan chain.
What will it no longer be possible to do?
I tried for years to make the list of prohibitions, to say "we are going to prohibit riding a mountain bike and with a mast, with a rower ..." And then last year, I said to myself that if we did that , in this crazy world, if we write "forbidden to mountain bikes" for example and we forget to put electric mountain bikes, we will have someone with an electric mountain bikes. So let's stop reasoning in prohibitions and reason positively by saying what is possible instead. This is how I proposed to the President of the Republic to reserve the activities for mountaineering and skiing. And the mayor of Chamonix made mountaineering ski precise.
In which zone will these activities be accepted?
It is in the central zone, that which includes a good part of the Mont-Blanc massif on the side of Les Houches, Chamonix and Saint-Gervais. There is also a small peripheral zone which is on the Aiguille map, in Chamonix, and in Saint-Gervais on the eagle's nest, at the arrival of the Mont-Blanc tramway to the Tête Rousse glacier . There, we also have people who come with the rack railway to do something other than mountaineering and skiing. They come to discover a glacier, etc. We must impose on them rules for respecting the site, but with appropriate practices. It must be possible to do trail or mountain biking. It will also be possible to go up with your sail in the back and to descend by paraglider. But landing on the paraglider summit is no longer possible. Unless, as provided for by the decree, an activity is authorized by the prefect on a temporary and derogatory basis, after having obtained the opinion of the mayors concerned.
Other points have not yet been decided, such as imposing a minimum age for climbing.
This is a proposal that was made by the prefect's mountain adviser and the high mountain gendarmerie platoon (PGHM) because, last year, a Russian wanted his 7-year-old kid to do Mont-Blanc. The mayor of Chamonix asked for this item to be withdrawn. I find this idea interesting. When we make a rule, it's for everyone. And children who are able to do Mont-Blanc at 10, 11 or 12 years of age are exceptions. They are, for example, the daughter of a guide, the boy of a refuge keeper. So I wanted that under a certain age, the accompaniment by a guide is compulsory and that it is this last, professional, to decide if the kid can or can not make the ascent. This debate on the establishment of a minimum age is still open. The prefect's adviser should think about it in connection with the guides in particular.
When will these new rules apply?
The municipalities, namely Les Houches, Chamonix and Saint-Gervais, will deliberate in July. And then there will be the consultation of the scientific committee, the chamber of agriculture and the ONF to lead in the second half of August to a public availability. Everyone can give their opinion. After that, the prefect will sign and it will become something final in the fall.
Until then and especially during the summer, nothing will change then to supervise the activities?
Today, we are in the administrative phase. We consult, but we all agree. The president, his minister, everyone agrees and agrees. But by the time the order was signed, I had invented the moral application. In other words, all those who are going to carry out checks (white brigade, PGHM, etc.) have the mission of making all mountaineers understand that everything has changed and that it is now necessary to put into practice what everything the world wants. It is the moral application of a decision which has not yet been taken legally.
Can there be no verbalizations?
We will be in education and prevention. But by making it clear that we can no longer accept a certain number of things, such as riding a rower on Mont-Blanc. We will find things to verbalize when necessary.
Society
"I did not imagine such a surge of insults possible" ... The mayor of Saint-Gervais will file a complaint
Planet
Mont-Blanc: On the Mer de Glace, Emmanuel Macron measures the effects of global warming
- Alpine skiing
- Mountaineering
- Environment
- ecology
- Alps
- Mont-blanc
- Mountain
- Planet