"Being considered an irresponsible polluter, I find it very difficult to live with," regretted Georges Méric on Europe 1 this morning. The president of the Departmental Council of Haute-Garonne, who will be Thursday afternoon at the Ministry of the Environment with other owners of ski resorts and local actors, reacted to the words of the Minister, Elisabeth Borne. The latter, in fact, expressed its anger after stations had forwarded tons of snow on tracks that lacked it.
"Madam Minister wants to show that she is outraged ... but you have to know why she is outraged? What did we do in Luchon [Luchon-Superbagnères (Haute-Garonne)]? We have put the snow, less than 50 cubic meters, on the children's ski lift so that they can have lessons with ski instructors the next day, "explained the president of the Departmental Council.
"Why did I do it? Because I protect the job"
And the latter fully accepts his decision: "Why did I do it? Because I protect employment, because we have an economic machine on the mountains, which we must certainly mutate, but which we must keep" , he explained, ensuring that he wanted to preserve the station: "We have a tool, we must not kill it, we must maintain it". To support his point, Georges Méric took the example of catering, in difficulty this year: "They are at the end of their rope. If we do not support them, they will close and it's fifteen jobs there, it's fifty jobs there, that makes two hundred jobs which will disappear and that I do not want it ", he concluded, specifying that 25 million euros of investment would allow" to diversify the activity of our three stations. "