The Olympic and Paralympic Games – French Alps 2030: A Battle of narratives concerning Mountain areas?
The topic of the 2030 Winter Olympics is causing conflicts among stakeholders in the French Alps, which often revolve around public consultation and social acceptance of this type of sporting event. Several environmental and civic NGOs have taken up the issue by quantifying the ecological impacts or by developing arguments regarding the socio-economic impacts—whether favorable or unfavorable to the sustainable development of mountain regions — as a basis for dialogue with public authorities. Factually, there has been no public consultation process as such, but rather an objective announced by the government to “build together” within existing bodies such as the Massif committees, without questioning the hosting of the 2030 Winter Olympics in the French Alps.
CIPRA France aims to to examine local situations and residents’ perceptions of their territory in greater detail — their perspectives being rarely heard amid the multitude of positions taken by the government, NGOs, political organizations, and others.
To this end, a study is being conducted in La Clusaz to “give a voice” to inhabitants and to put their on-the-ground feedback into perspective alongside the statements made by the organizers of the 2030 Winter Olympics. The aim is to characterize how residents process information about the 2030 Winter Olympics, to examine how the La Clusaz region is shaped by its residents, and to highlight their practices in this area.
All this material will provide an overview of mountain-related issues (land use, mobility, natural resources, etc.) and offer a solid foundation upon which CIPRA France can build its analysis and continually address the realities experienced by Alpine residents.
Objectives:
- Serve as a link between local residents and scientific data to support policy-making and disseminate knowledge within the regions.
- Develop a mapping of CIPRA members’ positions on the 2030 Winter Olympics
Activities:
- Assessing members’ current positions and converging/diverging aspects,
- Establishing contact with residents of one of the sites affected by the 2030 Olympic Games in order to conduct a sociological study, and presenting this field analysis to the CIPRA France network.
This project was conducted by Salomé Robin-Detraz during an internship, thanks to the funding of the Boutique des Sciences and the Living Lab Esprit des Sciences – Fondation Charpak.