France French winter sports resorts close ski stations due to lack of snow

In the French winter sports resort of Seyne-les-Alpes, the ski lifts will be shut down forever. Due to the increasing lack of snow as a result of climate change and the municipality having to subsidize the operation of the lifts with ever-increasing sums of money, 71.3 percent of those taking part in a referendum on Sunday voted in favour of closing the le Grand Puy ski station, as the municipality announced.

The municipality of 1,300 inhabitants recently pumped around 350,000 euros a year into the ski resort, whose turnover has fallen by 60 percent within ten years. The ski resort, located at an altitude of 1,370 to 1,800 meters, has around 24 kilometers of slopes.

Operation of the lifts will now officially cease on November 1 and the facilities will be dismantled and sold. The municipality plans to offer its visitors environmentally friendly sports and nature activities. Mayor Laurent Pascal does not fear a slump in tourism. Pascal told BFMTV that visitors to the ski slope are mainly people from the surrounding area or with a second home in the region who continue to come to the village, which also offers other activities.

Closure of ski resort not an isolated case

Seyne-les-Alpes became famous outside of winter sports mainly due to the Germanwings crash. Not far from the town, a co-pilot suffering from depression deliberately steered the plane into a mountain on the route from Barcelona to Düsseldorf in 2015.

The fate of the ski resort in Seyne-les-Alpes is not an isolated case in France. On Friday evening, the municipal council of Matheysine voted to close the Alpe du Grand Serre ski station, where there was also increasingly insufficient snow. Since 2017, the region has subsidized the operation of the ski station with 2.7 million euros, as reported by the newspaper "Libération". Plans were already underway to expand the station, which opened in 1938, for further tourism activities. In the end, however, these were not financially viable.

SDA