With this symbolic visit, Emmanuel Macron hopes to begin the ecological shift in his five-year term, hitherto stuck in pension reform. The president, visiting Mont-Blanc this Thursday, has traveled the spectacular Mer de Glace, deprived of snow this year. The opportunity to point out the impacts of global warming on the glacier.
In dark blue ski gear, the President of the Republic listened to the terrible climate inventory: the ice is shrinking 8 to 10 meters per year, about 2 km since 1850. In all, the glacier has lost 120 meters in thickness in one century. This is undoubtedly the most spectacular illustration of the impact of global warming in France.
"It's dizzying when you see it," said the head of state in particular, before the alternation of gray rocks and bright blue ice, before sliding, at the end of the visit: "We realize how non-decisions have made it happen. "
A protected Mont-Blanc area
While he must launch this Thursday the French Office of Biodiversity (OFB), Emmanuel Macron had dinner Wednesday evening with leading figures such as the famous climatologist Jean Jouzel, the biologist Camille Parmesan and the biodiversity specialist Anne Larigauderie, from the 'IPBES, which last year published a chilling report on the disappearance of species.
Around the table were also leaders of associations like the president of France Nature Environment, and personalities, including the explorer-adventurer Mike Horn.
Wednesday, at the exit of the Ecological Defense Council, in addition to several eco-responsible commitments, the executive announced the creation of a protected area of the Mont Blanc site, threatened by overcrowding and incivility, by the end of the year. Measures that environmental associations have generally deemed insufficient. Emmanuel Macron right to descend this Thursday to Chamonix to detail measures to protect Mont Blanc (4,809 m) and its ecosystem.
"A summit of rubbish and hypocrisy"
Emmanuel Macron will then stop in Saint-Gervais-les-Bains, for lunch with local elected officials who want to challenge him on the pollution in the Arve valley, caused by the passage of too many heavy goods vehicles and heating at wood. Laurent Wauquiez, president of the region, with the mayor of Chamonix, Eric Fournier, supported by LREM, asked him to regulate the most polluting trucks in the Mont-Blanc tunnel and to develop the railway in the valley.
"I cannot prohibit trucks from passing," replied the head of state to the Dauphiné Libéré, advocating a European policy of fleet renewal, to avoid penalizing only French truck drivers.
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At LFI, the deputy François Ruffin mocked "a summit of rubbish and hypocrisy", asking the president not to be satisfied with "legislating on who will be able to climb at the top of Mont-Blanc" but "structural measures on how we make less greenhouse gases in this country, and for that it is necessary that there are fewer trucks crossing it ”.
