"It's sad to see the chapel in this state", breathes a hiker who has walked for several hours in the mountains to admire the highest religious monument in France, unfortunately in danger at 3171 meters above sea level.
Wrapped in multiple straps that still keep its walls upright, the Notre-Dame-des-Sept-Douleurs chapel is cracking on all sides.
The small church of 36 m2, erected in the 15th century at the top of Mount Tabor then rebuilt - already - in 1897, risks collapsing because of global warming, twice as fast in the Alps.
"The base of the chapel is on a scree whose cohesion depends on the ice of the basement, what is called permafrost", studied Pierre-Alain Duvillard, Savoyard geomorphologist.
“Rising mercury melts it.
The ground becomes soft.
So the foundations have moved several tens of centimeters in recent years.
Result: the facade comes off and the floor slips away.
“A bizarre story”
A rescue mission was launched in 2017 but was confronted with the Kafkaesque complexity of the file.
Because the chapel belongs to the Italian municipality of Bardonècchia, while the summit of Mount Tabor has been since a 1947 treaty on the border of three Savoyard municipalities and the village of Névache (Hautes-Alpes).
“It's a preposterous story of which we finally see the end!
The work should take place by 2024, ”impatiently Christiane Champ, member of the Religious Heritage Association of Névache.
VIDEO.
Mont Blanc shrinks and now measures 4807.81 meters
“The chapel will be dismantled and then rebuilt stone by stone some sixty meters higher, on a more stable area.
It is important because of its religious and historical value, as well as for its function as a refuge when hikers are in difficulty”.
The operation should cost 100,000 euros and will once again allow masses to be held closer to the heavens.