France's Snow Economy: A Model on Its Last Legs?

How can entire valleys survive when the snow on which the economy has relied for years becomes increasingly uncertain?

Since the 1960s "Snow Plan", resorts have profoundly reshaped the mountain environment. Ski lifts, roads, secondary residences, water and sanitation networks: the mountains have been equipped to accommodate more and more skiers, at a time when energy was cheap, snow abundant, and biodiversity largely absent from public debate.

Today, this model is clashing with rising temperatures.

IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) projections are quite clear: the altitude at which snow is found is increasing. By 2050, only certain high-altitude resorts (Tignes, Val-Thorens, Chamonix, Val-d’Isère, etc.) should, in the short term, retain sufficient snow cover to maintain regular skiing activity.

For a large part of the Southern Alps, the Jura, the Vosges, and the Pyrenees, the situation is less certain. According to an OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) study from 2007, still regularly used as a reference by institutions, a ski area can only be economically viable if it achieves a minimum of 100 days of opening per year. A threshold that has become increasingly difficult to reach: mild winters, precipitation more often in the form of rain, and more frequent thaws.

This is leading to an increasing number of closures today. And with them, a new landscape is appearing in the French massifs: abandoned ski lifts, dilapidated buildings, isolated pylons. Ghost resorts, visible scars of a collapsing model. But are all resorts condemned to end up this way? Can we still develop alternatives?

Faced with this problem, two trajectories are emerging for resorts.

The first consists of reorienting the economic model by reducing dependence on alpine skiing and developing "four-season" activities. This is the path taken by resorts like Métabief, in the Jura, which invests in year-round outdoor leisure activities independent of snow: mountain bike trails, hiking, rail sledding, etc. Skiing is maintained, but without massive new investments. A gradual, more resilient transition, which accepts climate change instead of denying it, but is not always adapted to environmental challenges such as biodiversity loss and the need to reduce our energy consumption.

In winter, activities like ski touring: booming and requiring no heavy infrastructure, it follows the natural lines of the mountain and attracts a growing public in search of authenticity.

This practice could become the core of a new model, economically and ecologically lighter, provided certain good practices for biodiversity preservation are respected.

The second trajectory, often combined with the first, is that of the headlong rush: maintaining skiing at all costs by investing in artificial snowmaking. Today, the vast majority of alpine domains are equipped with snow cannons. What was once a punctual solution (securing the bottom of certain slopes) has become a condition for survival. Entire domains are now snow-covered, and equipment is being installed ever higher.

When you go down a white and perfectly smooth slope, it's easy to forget what it represents: a heavy, systematic, and energy-intensive intervention on the environment.

Artificial snow is four times denser than natural snow. It compacts the soil with the help of grooming machines, delays thawing, reduces thermal insulation, and slows down vegetation growth. Sonja Wipf, a plant ecologist at WSL and SLF in Switzerland, and her team observed a loss of about 11% of plant species in areas under snow-covered slopes compared to neighboring areas.

Fauna is also impacted: in winter, when animals need to conserve energy, areas equipped with snow cannons are noisier, more frequented, and therefore avoided. Hares, chamois, deer, birds... move away from these sectors, while hill reservoirs (water storage basins) can become traps for amphibians and dry up natural wetlands.

But the most critical point remains water. Artificial snowmaking requires significant withdrawals from torrents and aquifers... precisely when their flows are lowest. The Cour des comptes (French National Audit Office) already points out that some resorts see their snow production limited by resource depletion, with an increasing risk of competition with drinking water and other uses in the area (agriculture, etc.).

And the irony is stark: the lack of snow, partly caused by an energy-intensive model, is compensated by a technology that is itself very energy-intensive. A vicious cycle that, in the long run, will in any case become ineffective: when temperatures are too high, the cannons will no longer work.

Beyond the environmental impacts, it is the very economic viability of alpine skiing that is faltering. The alpine ski market is maturing: attractiveness is decreasing, ski classes are becoming rarer, the housing stock is aging, while infrastructure maintenance costs are only increasing.

This reality clashes with a major social issue: resorts generate, directly or indirectly, about 120,000 jobs in the French massifs. It is an entire local economy that depends on this "white gold" which has become increasingly scarce. But it is precisely this dependence that poses a problem.

Therefore, transition is no longer an option: it is inevitable. But it can also be an opportunity. The real question is whether we choose to anticipate it to make it a territorial project, or whether we will endure it in urgency.

Artificially maintaining resort skiing as we know it is a short-term solution that mortgages the future. Rather than risking turning the mountains into a museum of tourist ruins, we have the opportunity to reinvent these territories.

The urgency is not to save all-skiing at any cost. It is to support territories towards other, more resilient models, before it's too late. Examples like Métabief show that another path is possible. But it requires political courage, anticipation, and the acceptance of an uncomfortable truth: we cannot force the mountain to bend to our desires. It is up to us to adapt to it, and not the other way around.

This transition is not an end in itself, but the beginning of a new model to be built together. Mountain territories were able to reinvent themselves after the war by focusing on skiing; they will be able to do so again by developing more sustainable, diversified, and respectful tourism. Climate change forces us all to rethink our practices. This is an opportunity to redefine our relationship with the mountains.

For let's remember that the mountain is not a playground at our disposal. It is a living, fragile environment that welcomes us. This privilege calls for our responsibility. Respecting marked trails, leaving no trace of our passage, observing wildlife from a distance, adapting our practices to sensitive periods for biodiversity: these are all simple gestures that demonstrate a renewed awareness. The mountain of tomorrow will be the one we choose to preserve today. Not by mastering it, but by learning to live with it, respecting its rhythm and its limits.