Emmanuel Macron went Thursday to the Mer de Glace, in the Mont Blanc massif, as a symbol of the ecological turning point in his mandate and before the municipal elections. After meeting the Ecological Defense Council on Wednesday morning, the President of the Republic first spent the night at an altitude of 2,000 meters in the Montenvers refuge. Then he wanted to show himself, Thursday, at the bedside of the Mer de Glace which retreats from eight to ten meters per year and has lost about two kilometers since 1850. Certainly the most spectacular illustration of climate change in France.
Head of state "impressed"
As part of this carefully thought out trip prepared by the Elysée Palace, Emmanuel Macron arrived early in a ski suit, with blue, white and red sleeves. After passing by the gondola, the president climbed the 500 steps which lead to the glacier. These are punctuated by small plaques which indicate the retreat of the Mer de Glace. "Impressive," blew the head of state. A scientist present told Europe 1 that the melting of the Mer de Glace could be complete within fifty years.
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His guide of the day, the glaciologist Luc Moreau, then showed him the ice cave. "You, your work, necessarily it is not on the short time. Unfortunately, you will not see during your mandate [the effect] of the decisions which you will take", he warned him. "You are right. And we can see how much the non-decisions of long ago lead to that," replied the head of state.
At the end of the morning, the head of state delivered a fiery speech in Chamonix on the "climatic emergency", "the fight of the century" according to him. He said he felt here "our own vulnerability, the fragility of this landscape that was thought to be irremovable". "We have to demonstrate that this strategy is compatible with economic progress because it is the strategy I believe in," he added. The "fight for biodiversity is inseparable from the fight against global warming", also added the head of state. Some "60% of wild animals have disappeared in the last 50 years, species are disappearing at a rate 1000 times higher than the rate of natural extinction", Emmanuel Macron, who also launched the French Office for Biodiversity for the occasion ( OFB).
Without a new announcement, he especially drew up the table of actions which he linked to ecological objectives, citing the revitalization of city centers to fight against urban sprawl, the law on recycling or even creation, announced the day before. , new natural parks, including to protect Mont-Blanc.
"A summit of rubbish and hypocrisy", for François Ruffin
On the spot, a demonstration against this pollution and the pension reform gathered 250 people, but it was dispersed before the arrival of Emmanuel Macron. "Come to cry in front of the Mer de Glace when the agreements of the climate conferences are not respected and that the greenhouse gas emissions increase, it is parade, it is com '", tanced in the procession Pierre Delpy, energy advisor in an association.
On Europe 1 Thursday, the insubordinate member of France François Ruffin for his part estimated that the visit of Emmanuel Macron in the Mont Blanc massif was "a summit of rubbish and hypocrisy". He made the link between the traffic of trucks crossing the Mont Blanc tunnel and the melting of the Mer de Glace. "However since the beginning of Macron's mandate, there has been no action taken in piggyback", he regretted, citing the example of Switzerland in this area.
"What we ask Emmanuel Macron, who is president of the Republic, not president of the departmental council of Haute-Savoie, [it is not] to legislate on who will be able to climb at the top of Mont-Blanc", but "structural measures on how we do it so that there are fewer greenhouse gases in this country, and for that it is necessary that there are fewer trucks crossing it", he added .