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FRENCH HISTORY

France, Italy or Switzerland – which country is Mont Blanc in?

Towering majestically in the Alps, the mountain of Mont Blanc is naturally completely indifferent to political disputes over borders - but that doesn't stop the three countries arguing over it.

Published: 2 August 2022 11:18 CEST
France, Italy or Switzerland - which country is Mont Blanc in?
Is Mont Blanc in France, Italy or Switzerland? Photo by OLIVIER CHASSIGNOLE / AFP

At least 30 million years old, it’s fair to say that Mont Blanc definitely predates the existence of France, Italy and Switzerland, which means that as those countries were being created and drawn onto maps, they had to decide who got Europe’s highest mountain.

Asking which country Mont Blanc is in is a more complicated question than you might think.

The basic answer is that it’s on the French-Italian border, with the majority of the mountain’s bulk falling on the French side. However at least some of the mountain is in Italy and the Swiss canton of Valais also lays claim to some of the lower slopes.

France and Italy have been arguing about Mont Blanc (known as Monte Bianco in Italy) since the 18th century, with the Italians claiming that the border divides the summits of both Mont Blanc and neighbouring Dôme de Goûter equally between France and Italy, while the French insist that the border in fact bypasses both summits, placing the mountains in France.

In total around 75 hectares of land is disputed territory.  

Before that, France was arguing with the independent Duchy of Savoy, within which the mountain stood. Eventually Savoy ceased to be an independent state and its territories have been subsumed into the French départements of Savoie and Haute-Savoie, the Italian regions of Aosta and Piedmont and the Swiss canton of Geneva.

But it’s not just borders that move, the mountain also shifts a bit and in fact the climate crisis is accelerating that process as the Mont Blanc glacier melts, along with surrounding snowfalls, leading to changes is the shape of the mountain range.

The dispute largely involves slightly different looking maps in the different countries though, and it seems unlikely that either side is about to go to war.

Famously-neutral Switzerland is also unlikely to launch a war over this issue, but it is in dispute with Italy over the location of a nearby mountain lodge, which has recently shifted position due to melting snows and glaciers.

While this might sound like something that is only of interest to cartographers, the ski industry is a lucrative one to all three countries, and the mountain lodge dispute has been the subject of diplomatic discussion since 2018.

Signs at the Mont Blanc glacier show visitors how it is receding year by year. Photo by PHILIPPE DESMAZES / AFP

Increasing changes to the entire mountain range due to rising temperatures mean that these disputes are likely to become more common in the future.

For the moment, however, the dispute remains largely good-humoured – as seen in this Twitter exchange between the French and Swiss embassies during the Euros football tournament. 

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JOHN LICHFIELD

OPINION: Despite pension reform passing, Macron faces four years as a ‘blocked’ president

The president on Wednesday tried to sell the French people on his new ideas for the next four years of his term in office, but John Lichfield sees little chance of him being able to progress his agenda, even after pension protests have subsided.

Published: 22 March 2023 17:16 CET
OPINION: Despite pension reform passing, Macron faces four years as a 'blocked' president

President Emmanuel Macron has finally made the case for pension reform – six days after his government used special powers to ram it through the National Assembly.

His appearance on the 1pm TV news on Wednesday was both a typical Macron performance and rather strange.

Strange, first of all, because he chose to speak to the lunchtime news bulletins, which are traditionally dominated by old ways making lace or new ways of making cheese.

Strange also because Macron made a rather good case for his pension reform – and it is largely “his” reform – after choosing to evade the debate for months.

There have been six days of sometimes violent protest since the pension bill – gradually increasing France’s official retirement age from 62 to 64 – was pushed through the Assembly without a “normal” vote. There will be a ninth day of nationwide strikes and marches on Thursday.

Macron’s 40-minute interview was not pitched at the strikers or violent protesters. Short of a capitulation, he knew that they had no interest in what he might say.

The interview was pitched at a notional silent majority of French people who detest pension reform but also now want to go on with their lives. Hence the choice of the 1pm TV news bulletins. They are watched by an elderly, provincial audience. The presenters mostly skirt controversy (and the news) to celebrate a universal and eternal France.

In other words, Macron is trying to play a long game. He is waiting for the storm to pass. He is counting on a public backlash to gather against the disruption of the strikes and the violence of a minority of protesters.

The President offered – again somewhat belatedly – a list of the more agreeable reforms which might be completed in the final four years of his mandate if normal political life resumes.

There could, he said, be new legislation to force large companies to share “exceptional profits” with their workers rather than increase their bosses’ salaries or buy back company shares.

You can listen to John Lichfield talk about the political crisis engulfing France in our new Talking France podcast on Spotify, Apple or Google podcasts. Download it HERE or listen on the link below.

 

He invited the unions to put the toys back into the pram and start a new “dialogue” with the government on ways of easing the final working years of people in physically demanding jobs. He did not mention that similar measures once existed but were dismantled during his first term.

His defence of the pension reform was drawn from the “blood, sweat and tears” school of political rhetoric (but accurate enough). France could not preserve its posterity and social model if it persisted in working less than its partners and competitors, he said.

What did people expect of him, he asked ? That he should “do as my predecessors did and sweep the dirt under the carpet?”

It is a pity, and a mystery, that Macron not make this case weeks ago. Instead, he chose to leave the selling of the reform to the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, and her ministers, who alternated between describing it as “tough but fair” and a “left-wing” social advance.

On Borne’s future, Macron was not entirely convincing. Many people, including myself, have predicted that she will pay the traditional price of French prime ministers  and will be dumped by Macron within a month or so to try to clear the air or give a new sense of direction to the government.

Macron said, rather curtly, that Borne had his “confidence”, But he also said that he expected her to enlarge her centrist minority government by finding new parliamentary allies from the centre-right or centre-left.

She has tried that before and failed. My interpretation of Macron’s words is that, if she fails again, he will appoint a new prime minister who may be able to lasso a few of the 30 or so centre-right Les Républicains (LR) deputies who supported the reform and then helped to defeat opposition censure motions on Monday.

Les Républicains, the rump of the once-great Gaullist movement, have been shattered by the pensions reform crisis. That may eventually be good news for Macron or his would-be centrist successors. It may, however, also be good news for Marine Le Pen.

So what now?

Macron seemed to say at one point that he was anticipating another two to three weeks of demonstrations and strikes before the protests subsided. He may be right. It is worth recalling, however, that the Giles Jaune (yellow vest) rebellion lasted for six months in 2018-9 before it petered out.

The problem facing the trades unions is to keep the protests going. There will be a huge turn-out for the marches on Thursday but the bigger the numbers, the harder they will be to sustain in the days and weeks ahead.

The open-ended oil refinery and rubbish-collection strikes are beginning to cause real problems – and also real annoyance. It is that swing in the public mood that Macron is relying on.

The pension reform law is being studied by the Constitutional Council. The great and good members of the Council must pronounce within three weeks. If they reject the law (possible but unlikely), Macron will be humiliated and the protests will have no reason to continue.

If they approve the law, the protests may subside.

Either way, I see little chance of Macron getting much domestic business done in his final four years. The pension law was supposed to be the gateway to other reforms.

Despite the would-be, feel-good agenda that the President offered, despite the inevitable decline in protests, there is no obvious way forward.

Pensions may end up, not as the gateway to further reform, but as a flaming barricade.

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