Around fifty people gathered on Saturday afternoon at Alpe d'Huez, protesting against the holding of Tomorrowland winter, an electronic music festival which brings together more than 20,000 revelers for a week in the Isère resort.
“Stop Tomorrowland”, “the mountain is not for sale”, could we read on the demonstrators’ signs as the event organized its 4th edition from March 16 to 23.
Since its first edition in 2019, and after the two blank years that followed due to the health crisis, the festival, which sets up ten stages in the village and on the slopes, has been the subject of strong criticism from association for environmental protection and residents' groups.
“This is ecological nonsense and has no place here.
Alpe d'Huez doesn't need that at all.
It was already a factory, but we moved to a higher level
,” points out Agnès Leclerc, retired ski instructor.
The excess of the event and its environmental impact, which its detractors denounce, are particularly pointed out, the festival being held near the Écrins Natural Park and installing stages in the ski area, one of which is at the top of the slopes, at 3,300 m. m altitude.
“We wonder where their limit is.
We feel dispossessed of our territory
,” annoys Jean-René Minelli, a high mountain guide and resident of the neighboring valley, accusing the Alpe d’Huez resort of
“serving the interests of a few people and not one. sustainable economy
.
“We’re not doing anything wrong. We just come to have fun, meet new people. There are more important problems
,” said a group of young Swedes who came to Tomorrowland Winter for the first time and observed the procession from afar.
The Mountain Wilderness and France Nature Environnement associations, with the Stop Tomorrowland collective, sent a letter a few days before the festival to the prefect of Isère to request measurement of the festival's sound levels.
“A large number of concerts take place in the heart of the ski area, at altitude and outdoors, accompanied by numerous pyrotechnic effects: we are in a drift here,”
denounces the letter that AFP was able to consult.
Elected officials from Isère, environmentalists, also sent a referral to the prefect of Isère to challenge the very legality of the contract concluded between the station and the Belgian company organizing the festival, considering that it violated public procurement rules.
For its part, the station defends an event which has local economic benefits, estimated at 13 million euros by Tomorrowland, and which makes it possible to attract a new international clientele.
The municipality of Huez signed a new contract at the end of 2023 with the Belgian company organizing the festival, which provides for the holding of five new editions, i.e. until 2030.