Mayor of Chamonix sees red

The mayor of Chamonix, Michel Charlet has described plans to paint the summit of Mont-Blanc red as “stupid and illegal”. A Danish artist, Marco Evaristti wants to colour the summit of Western-Europe’s highest mountain with fruit based pigments to draw attention to the pollution in the Alps caused by tourism. Charlet told the AFP news agency that there has been a earlier project to “paint the glaciers blue” by another team and said that Evaristti was a self-publicist.

mont blanc
Artist’s impression of the red Mont-Blanc

The artist says that he intends to go ahead with his project whether or not he receives permission. Evaristti, who was born in Chile, had previously painted an iceberg red using 3000 liters of colouring. Charlet warned him that “Mont Blanc benefits from the strictest environmental protection” and that a “helicopter landing is forbidden on the summit.” He continued that the project is incoherent, “you can’t protect the environment by degrading a protected area”. The mayor has alerted the Gendarmerie in Chamonix.

However, while not agreeing with Evarissti’s stunt, it is the local mayors that have been described as “incoherent” by environmental groups. Local politicians have fiercely resisted calls to class Mont-Blanc as a national park as this would severely restrict increasing the tourist flights and the development of ski resorts at the foot of the 4810 meter mountain. The helicopter ban is moot with groups of skiers dropped just over the border with Italy and Switzerland before descending into France. Mountain Wilderness France has described the mayor of St Gervais as a “schizophrenic” with his calls for a permit system to climb Mont-Blanc while at the same time facilitating access through the refurbishment of the last leg of the Mont-Blanc tramway.

Posted by on Thursday, 21 December, 2006 at 12:18 PM

Marco Evaristti is en-route for the summit but risks having the local police waiting for him. He told the AFP yesterday that “my project is to transform the legendary mountain Mont Blanc into Mont Rouge and declare the birth of a sovereign state on the summit - the pink state”. He went on to claim “it is two faced for France, who does nuclear tests thousands of km away in Polynesia to stop me from occupying this small bit of ground of Mont Blanc for peaceful protest”.

Posted by davidof on Tuesday, 05 June, 2007 at 09:50 AM

According to Colonel Olivier Kim, who commands the Gendarmerie in the Haute-Savoie… “At 10h30 M Evaristti was stopped by the Gendarmerie in the Valley Blanche and invited to descend to Chamonix in the helicopter belonging to the PGHM. He offered no resistance. M Evaristti is helping us with out inquiries and may be chared with an offence against the enviromental code.” Mont-Blanc has been listed since 1938.

Hopefully the Gendarmerie will also be arresting some of the heliski operations which also make drops on the French side of the border in contravention of the same laws.

Posted by davidof on Tuesday, 05 June, 2007 at 03:29 PM

In the end a compromise was reached and Mr Evaristti unfurled eight swathes of plastic-covered fabric to form a circle on the summit of Mont Blanc. They topped the creation with a 20-foot flagpole and banner reading ‘’Pink State.’’

http://www.happynews.com/news/6112007/danish-artist-drapes-mont-blanc-red.htm

Posted by davidof on Tuesday, 19 June, 2007 at 09:24 PM

There are no laws to turn off engines whilst parked, having just got back from two weeks in an expensive apartment beside a busy bridge, where the bus stops and sits with engine running many times each day, it makes the sky black. On a walk to buy some bread, I passed another lorry parked with engine running whilst the driver was in the back unloading vast boxes of advertising flyers..he refused to turn his engine off. Back at the 4* (!?) apartment, settling to breakfast, I was able to watch and breathe in the dust being blown by a worker with leaf blowing machine, he was literely blowing brown dust from the side of the road into the air, I filmed him just to prove to people how much cash is spent in Chamonix on usles and poluting rubbish. Where are the electiric buses? where are the laws to protect? turn off engines, fines for ciggerette buts thrown over the balconys/off lifts....is it too late? having taken my questions to the tourist office and then the Marie, it seems so, nobody takes responsibilty but will agree there is a problem...just keep taking the cash while its there and dont rock the boat. I am free to help the guy paint the summit red, better than the brown of pollution

Posted by on Friday, 27 March, 2009 at 01:01 PM

Good points Francesca especially as Chamonix has protested on a number of occasions about the pollution the Mt Blanc tunnel brings to the valley (quite rightly).

They need to have a view on all the problems. Even if electric buses are not practical (Val d’Isere experimented with them during the world cup) then they could at least have a modern service running on natural gas or LPG.

Leaving engines running is something I notice in France. I guess it is possible that some delivery vehicles need to run the engines to keep refrigeration running but delivery flyers?

Posted by davidof on Friday, 27 March, 2009 at 02:54 PM