A large French Alpine ski resort has announced it is to close, citing a lack of funds to become a year-round destination, as low- and medium-altitude mountain areas around Europe struggle with a truncated season due to global heating and declining snowfalls.
Local councillors voted not to reopen Alpe du Grand Serre in the Isère this winter, saying they could no longer pay for the mountain lifts or pay to complete a programme to diversify as an all-year tourist destination.
The move will wipe out 200 jobs and hit businesses in the nearby village of La Morte, whose economy and population of 150 people depend on winter sports.
A local sports shop owner, Lauranne Vincent, told France 3 television: “We are devastated and shocked. It’s a brutal decision coming two months before we were due to open. We were hoping the opposite would happen. We said all lights were green to go.”
Frédérique Laurence, the owner of a grocery shop in La Morte, added: “We’ve been left completely in the lurch. We still have loans to pay as we’ve only been here four years. Who will pay them? Our lives have been ruined. That’s what is going to happen to us.”
A lack of snow in the past two years has meant slopes opening later and being forced to close during the season, keeping skiers away. The loss-making Alpe du Grand Serre has also suffered from ageing infrastructure and a lack of investment over the past 40 years.
The local authority has spent nearly €3m since 2021 on a project that would keep the resort open all year round, attracting visitors with hiking and bike paths, but said it did not have the money to continue with it for the final two years before completion.
Coraline Saurat, president of the local authority, said it had come to the “unfortunate conclusion” that it could not afford to renew its contract with the company that operates the lifts or continue with the diversification plan.
The closure decision has sparked calls for the state to invest in threatened ski stations. “The state is not giving us any concrete support for the future of the resort or for a transitional operation,” said Saurat, who had warned in January the resort was facing a €7m hole in its budget. “Is it up to local authorities to run the stations? That’s a real question today. I don’t think we’re up to the challenges we represent.”
Alpe du Grand Serre, a collection of six villages at an altitude of 1,368 metres, a 45-minute drive from Grenoble, is the largest ski station in the northern Alps to be forced to close. It opened as a winter sports resort 85 years ago, is the second-oldest in the region and has 55km (35 miles) of slopes, three chairlifts and 10 drag lifts.
Florent Battistel, director of the French Ski School (ESF) at the resort, said: “There are 25 ski instructors and therefore 25 families (affected). The ski school works all through summer to prepare for the winter season. A sudden closure is a tragedy for the whole valley.”
Another resort, Grand Puy – sitting at an altitude of between 1,370 metres and 1,800 metres with 24km of slopes in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence – has also announced it is to close. The decision was blamed on a lack of regular snowfall leading to a drop in visitors and an annual loss of hundreds of thousands of euros, according to the local town hall.
Last year it was announced the French resort of La Sambuy would close after a shortage of snow. Local councillors said ski lifts would be dismantled despite the resort attracting summer visitors.
The local mayor, Jacques Dalex, told Europe 1 radio at the time: “Between the 1960s and today, the climate has changed greatly. Now, there is less snow in the winter. This year, we opened for only four weeks, that’s it. The season is getting shorter and shorter, and obviously, it is not going to get any better.”
An estimated 180 smaller French ski resorts have been forced to close since the 1970s not only due to climate breakdown, but also poor management and the inability to compete with larger domains, according to the geographer Pierre-Alexandre Metral of Grenoble University.
