While the prolonged shutdown of ski lifts plunges reservation rates at ski resorts, the government wants to show its support for seasonal workers.
Two members of the government traveling in the Hautes-Alpes on Monday announced that the state will provide "massive aid" to public and private mountain actors to compensate for these losses.
"We will be there" to "guarantee the municipalities concerned" and the ski lift operations "minimum resources", explained the Minister Delegate in charge of Public Accounts, Olivier Dussopt.
He was traveling to Saint-Étienne-en-Dévoluy, near Gap, with the Secretary of State for Rural Affairs, Joël Giraud.
#FranceRelance / Visit of ministers @olivierdussopt Dussopt and @ JoelGiraud05 at Welco Industries in Le Poët: a nugget from the Hautes-Alpes region selected in the France Relance plan to modernize and extend its production tool in a niche market for aeronautics.
pic.twitter.com/v2BPw9MlGP
- Prefect of Hautes-Alpes (@ Prefet05) January 25, 2021
Municipalities with income related to winter tourism "are guaranteed to receive at least what they received in 2019 in tourist taxes and ski lift taxes", continued Olivier Dussopt, specifying that the decrees renewing this provision already taken in 2020 "are being signed" for 2021. "It is extremely expensive but it will be enough to keep everyone out of the water", added Joël Giraud, ex-elected representative of the region.
Always "holes in the racket"
The government announced on January 20 that due to health restrictions linked to the Covid-19 epidemic, the ski lifts could not reopen in early February, nor probably the following weeks, to the chagrin of a sector that employs hundreds of thousands of people in the mountain valleys.
“It doesn't mean that everything will be fine”, conceded Olivier Dussopt, “it doesn't mean that there won't be any damage” because “there are always what are called holes in the racket” .
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Marie-Paule Rogou, mayor of Saint-Étienne-en-Devoluy, a town that hosts the SuperDévoluy ski resort, worried about the Minister of a mountain economy "today in agony", particularly the local businesses.
"Rest assured that we do our best to provide as many answers as possible", replied Olivier Dussopt.
A serious social breakdown is feared among seasonal workers, some of whom, not hired, do not benefit from partial unemployment.
"For those who have no hiring, there is classic unemployment but (it is) unfortunately not enough", admitted Joël Giraud.
