The president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region made public on Tuesday a letter addressed to Jean Castex in which he urges the government to speed up the examination of requests for aid for mountain professionals, affected by the health crisis.
To read also: Laurent Wauquiez: "Who will have the courage to stop the decadence?"
"
The non-reopening of the ski lifts this season is a tragedy for our mountain territories and their inhabitants are brought to their knees
", writes Laurent Wauquiez in his letter to the Prime Minister. 120,000 direct jobs are concerned according to him and “the
entire mountain ecosystem
” will be “
heavily impacted for several years
”. "
Many are the professionals who still have not received the slightest penny for four months for some,
" continues the outgoing president (LR) of the region, not yet officially declared a candidate for re-election. It is therefore for him "
capital to speed up payments and catch up on delays
".
The mail to Matignon ended with his handwritten words: “
Despair is rising. We must act quickly
". At the beginning of April, companies managing mountain tourist accommodation had also written to the Prime Minister to alert him to their fragile financial situation and to demand a review of the aid provided for the sector. The Covid-19 pandemic and the stoppage of ski lifts caused the collapse of mountain tourism this winter in France, with, according to the Pro tourisme firm, eight of the eleven billion euros in annual pre-crisis economic benefits lost . At the end of March, the government announced the release of financial aid intended to compensate for the cessation of activity for ski lift operators after the agreement of the European Commission. Ski areas of France, which represents the ski lift companies,then estimated that between 500 and 700 million euros in total could go to the operators, or about 200 public and private structures. At the beginning of April, an international report estimated that the 2019-2020 season was the "
worst
”in twenty years for the ski tourism industry around the world due to the pandemic, projecting an even more disastrous 2020-2021 season.
