Protecting Natural Resources: The Emergence of Environmental Concerns
When running water was brought into cities in the mid-nineteenth century, few were concerned about the impact of what was discharged directly into bodies of water downstream. The need to carefully protect water resources arose from the explosion of pollution and the shift in pollution patterns, which changed it from being odorous and visible due to tanneries and slaughterhouses to being odorless and invisible due to (or thanks to?) the development of chemistry and industry.
In today's world, the ongoing environmental challenge lies in developing expertise that connects new water uses with their environmental impacts, considering both the immediate and long-term consequences. This involves prioritizing appropriate technical solutions to address these issues.Alongside scientific experts, lawyers, and administrations, many anonymous individuals also play a role in this process, using their empirical knowledge of the field to observe modifications even while they are still largely invisible. This history of mobilizations around water is gradually becoming known to the general public and shows no signs of stopping.
Grégory Quenet
“Water is part of the common heritage of the nation. Its protection, enhancement, and the development of usable resources while respecting natural balances are of general interest.” This is what French law has stipulated since 1992, the result of decades of ecological struggle, scientific studies, and political choices. In the same year, the Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes was signed in Helsinki, aiming to “ensure rational and environmentally sound management of transboundary waters, make reasonable and equitable use of transboundary waters, and ensure the conservation or restoration of ecosystems.” This is because rivers, streams, and lakes do not stop at borders; they continue their course wherever nature leads them. Therefore, the protection of major hydrographic basins requires both local management, which allows for practical control and knowledge of the resource, and global management, which can provide cross-border coherence to national legislation. As another action to contribute to the preservation of the aquatic ecosystem, certain countries have granted legal personhood to their rivers, as is the case in India for the Ganges. In 2017, New Zealand also granted “living entity” status to the Whanganui River. In India, citizens can take legal action on behalf of the sacred river, while in New Zealand, the river's interests will be defended in legal proceedings by a lawyer. The ecological issues related to water are expanding in scope and involving issues never raised before: questions regarding biodiversity, landscapes, climate and the like. It is worth noting that climate change has firmly established itself in our minds and bodies following the exceptional drought across the Northern Hemisphere in 2022 and the devastating wildfires in North Africa, Australia, and Europe.
According to the Elabe Veolia Barometer of Ecological Transformation, published in 2022, 71 percent of the world's population expresses a sense of ecological and climate vulnerability, and 74 percent feel exposed to the degradation of biodiversity and the ecosystem in their country. Environmental awareness now extends beyond regional or national boundaries, where it originally emerged, to become a global issue, and the protection of water resources aligns with concerns about the overall conservation of biodiversity.
This has not always been the case. At the end of the nineteenth century, when the focus was on urban sanitation, the primary concern was to discard waste far away using the kinetic energy of water. Even Louis Pasteur envisioned a system that would “directly lead waste to the sea.” “Making waste invisible, odorless, and completely protecting the population from contact with it was the project—the utopia—that haunted the doctors” of that time, as Alain Corbin informs us in Le Miasme et la Jonquille.1 This anthropocentric vision was driven by the belief in water as a purifying force, capable even of purifying itself. At the bottom of a river or far out at sea, waste is invisible, and its case seems resolved. For decades, tons of waste, sometimes highly dangerous waste, were dumped, forgetting that the circular contamination of water which once caused cholera epidemics can occur on larger cycles and in larger areas beyond urban territories. Even today, many regions around the world produce waste that ends up directly in the sea, lakes, or rivers. According to the World Health Organization, 45 percent of domestic wastewater is still discharged without adequate treatment. Yet, the protection of the resource and of ecosystems, while not initially a priority, now has a long history behind it. Let's delve into this history, which began at the dawn of the twentieth century.
From the Fishing-club de France to the Landmark Water Law of 1964
Awareness of the need to preserve water resources emerged slowly in France, even after the construction of the first water networks. Initially, the theories of miasmatism, which attributed epidemics to foul odors rather than the intrinsic quality of water, persisted. The discoveries made by John Snow in London only date back to 1854—one year after the establishment of the Compagnie Générale des Eaux—and were initially contested by many scientists. It was not until the German researcher Robert Koch identified the Vibrio cholerae bacteria as the cause of cholera in 1883 that Snow's findings were supported. Moreover, urban sanitation initially focused on water supply rather than treatment. Consequently, preserving water quality at its source in its natural environment was not identified as a priority. However, scientific discoveries multiplied, and it was during the Third Republic, under the government of Waldeck-Rousseau in 1902, that one of the first major laws against groundwater pollution was passed in France. This law, known as the Edouard-Alfred Martel Law, prohibited “the disposal of dead animals into natural limestone cavities.” Martel, a pioneer of speleology, demonstrated through his research on spring hygiene that decomposing matter could cause severe epidemics. This legislation can be seen as one of the first movements for the protection of water resources in France, even though its application was limited in scope to freshwater springs.
Edouard-Alfred Martel, Pioneer in the Fight against Water Pollution
The Martel Law was enacted on February 15, 1902. This law, which prohibited the dumping of animal carcasses and putrefying waste in caves, bears the name of Edouard-Alfred Martel, a pioneer in both speleology and the fight against water pollution. Born in 1859, Martel was expected to become a lawyer like other members of his family, but his life took a different turn. After discovering a cave at the age of seven, this future geographer, a fervent admirer of Jules Verne, developed a passion for the depths of the earth.
As a modern adventurer, Martel explored caves, underground spaces, and other cavities with unprecedented scientific rigor. He gained notoriety after discovering the underground river of the Padirac Abyss in Lot, France, in 1889. This abyss, with a depth of 103 meters, is home to a river that runs for over fifty-five kilometers. Martel's wife, Aline de Launay, described his underground adventures as follows: “I accompanied him and waited for him at the cave entrance, admiring the ‘front’ of the landscape while he discovered the ‘back’ in the bowels of the earth [...]. You should have seen the state he was in when he emerged! [...] A true sewer worker!”
Two years later, while exploring the Berrie Abyss in the Vert Valley, Martel spotted a decomposing calf carcass at the bottom of a well. After completing his exploration, the thirsty spelunker drank water from the spring and fell ill with typhoid fever, which lasted for two months. This event inspired him to conduct research on the hygiene of water sources. In 1894, he wrote, “What could be more dangerous and deceptive than these clear waters, seemingly filtered by rocks, but actually carrying an abundance of microbes germinated on carcasses at the bottoms of sinkholes? This is why public nutrition and hygiene are highly concerned by underground studies.”
Edouard-Alfred Martel demonstrated that infiltration waters can carry serious epidemics such as typhoid fever. Hence, the father of modern speleology worked tirelessly to impose new hygiene rules. His work recommended that regions without filtering sandy soils pay extra attention to their water supplies and establish a “protection perimeter” against pollution. Thus, in 1902, the law enacted on February 15 established these protection perimeters and prohibited the dumping of dead animals and waste into natural cavities.
Although he did not directly pursue a political career like the scientists of his time, such as Marcellin Berthelot, Paul Langevin, or Paul Painlevé, who were later honored in the Panthéon, Martel nonetheless gave his name to this law because of his active advocacy on its behalf. With typhoid fever infections decreasing by three-quarters in France, it is no wonder that Martel was recognized as a “benefactor of humanity.” His research and discoveries on water pollution are compiled in a work titled Le nouveau traité des eaux souterraines, published in 1922.
Gradually, the changes brought about by the development of water networks revealed the need to protect the resource. The increasing quantity of human waste from growing cities made it impossible to spread it in the surrounding fields, especially since the influx of water into cesspools rendered this matter, now liquid, less usable. At the same time, a coalition of whistleblowers emerged, from scientists demonstrating the role of microbes in water contamination to recreational fishermen observing the impact of urban discharges on fish in water bodies. The creation of the Fishing-club de France in 1908, composed of a diverse range of members from recreational fishing enthusiasts to high-ranking government officials (such as water and forest inspectors), marked the beginning of a series of successful mobilizations during the first half of the twentieth century. An early example cited in a report by the Fishing-club de France was the conviction of a paper mill and two workers to two months in prison and four thousand francs in damages “following the intervention of a Society of fishermen, for discharging washing water from soda resin basins into the Meurthe River, causing considerable harm to fish.”
In Condom in the department of Gers, in 1929, a petition signed by thirty-five fishermen alerted the prefect to the discharge of waste from coal distillation by a gas plant into the Baïse River. The prefect, along with the administration of Bridges and Highways, urged the mayor to construct a sealed tank to collect the washing water. Solutions needed to be implemented, and these early dynamics foreshadowed the long-term cooperation that would be established between fishing associations and the Veolia Group. As an example, even today, the teams of Eaux de Marseille never empty the Saint-Christophe basin, which allows sedimentation of silt, without consulting local fishing associations.
As highlighted by Stéphanie Laronde, head of the Support-Institutional and Technical Cooperation Department at the International Water Office, conflicts of use related to resource pollution began to multiply in the 1960s. The quality of surface water, particularly rivers, deteriorated significantly due to industrial and agricultural activities, as well as the rapid urban expansion taking place after World War II. It was in this context that the Water Framework Law of December 16, 1964 was enacted. This law, which organized basin management, set quality objectives for each river in every French department and established the polluter-pays principle.
The 1970s: A Turning Point in Environmental Activism, New Solutions to Meet Demands
While the Water Framework Law provides a regulatory framework and financing measures, the economic model for industrial effluent treatment only took shape a little later. In the early 1970s, initiatives in this field were often the work of isolated individuals, such as the director of the water treatment plant in Méry-sur-Oise, who realized that the water was occasionally too polluted to be drawn and treated properly. Jean-François Nogrette, head of the France and Special Waste Europe division at Veolia, recounts this story: “At the time, the Oise River was like a sewer! Along its course, there was a highly developed steel industry that discharged heavy metals and cyanide. The river was on the verge of severe contamination and a water shutdown.” To prevent such a situation, Bertrand Gontard, who was the director of the water treatment plant at the time, proposed that industrial companies treat toxic waste upstream.
This activity did not yet exist in France but was made possible by the 1975 law on waste producer responsibility, as well as the contribution of basin agencies, established in 1964, which used the polluter-pays fee to finance treatment plants. As Jean-François Nogrette recalls, “The water agencies understood that to protect the water resource, it was necessary to dispose of this toxic waste, now called ‘hazardous industrial waste,’ upstream, without passing it through any bodies of water.” It is in the context of protecting water as a resource that SARP Industries was founded in 1975, specializing in hazardous waste and related to SARP (Rational Sanitation and Pumping Company).
The 1970s marked a collective awakening around environmental issues. The United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, held in Stockholm in 1972, made the environment a major concern for the first time. Principle 2 of the Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment states, “The natural resources of the earth, including the air, water, land, flora, and fauna, must be safeguarded in the interests of present and future generations through careful planning or management as appropriate.” In the same year, the Clean Water Act was passed in the United States. The law aimed to reduce pollution in bodies of water, including the Great Lakes, which had become a major health threat. It brought about a radical paradigm shift: moving from a system based on water quality standards to one based on effluent discharge standards, providing a framework to reduce industrial and municipal discharge into water resources. It also initiated a federal program to fund wastewater treatment plants. With this law, the legislature aimed to eliminate “the discharge of pollutants into navigable waters by 1985” and “make waters fishable and swimmable by 1983.” Although these goals were not entirely achieved due to a lack of coercive measures, water quality in the Great Lakes significantly improved during the following decade, with pollutant levels dropping.
The 1970s was also a period of increased associationism, as described by historian Pierre Rosanvallon in his book Le Modèle politique français (The French Political Model)2. During this time, “new types of nature and environmental protection associations emerged in France and around the world, from the French Federation of Nature Protection Societies (FFSPN, 1968) to Greenpeace (1971) and Friends of the Earth (1969),” as noted by Alexis Vrignon in the journal Vingtième Siècle.3 The association on the list was established in France under the name “Les Amis de la Terre,” with members including Brice Lalonde and Yves Cochet. It was also a time for the first political ecology magazines, such as La Gueule ouverte, launched by journalist Pierre Fournier in 1972, and Le Sauvage, founded in 1973 by Alain Hervé of Friends of the Earth. Many of these activists and journalists supported the first environmentalist to run for president in the election of 1974, René Dumont. A renowned agronomist and author of influential works like L'Utopie ou la mort! (Utopia or Death!, 1973), Dumont chose to symbolically drink a glass of water during his iconic televised appearance. “I am drinking this precious glass of water before you because before the end of the century, if we continue with such excess, it will be scarce,” he explained to astonished French citizens, who found his words exaggerated, if not downright ludicrous. As the first politician to emphasize not only water quality but also water quantity, René Dumont now appears ahead of his time in trying to convince a population mainly concerned with inflation due to the first oil crisis to pay more attention to ecological issues.
In those years, ecology emerged sporadically, primarily through local controversies whose aim was to preserve an environment in the form of a landscape or population that was threatened by an easily identifiable danger. Some of the most famous battles for the preservation of water and ecosystems took place in Brittany, starting with those related to oil spills. In March 1967, the tanker Torrey Canyon ran aground off the British coast, releasing 120,000 tons of crude oil. Despite their efforts, the English failed to contain the water pollution and, three weeks later, the oil reached northern Brittany. In order for the tourist season to take place, volunteers and the Army worked tirelessly to clean the beaches using whatever means available—sometimes even with their bare hands—before burying the oil waste in trenches dug on a nearby island. While this first oil spill left a lasting impression—Serge Gainsbourg even dedicated a song to it on the album Initials B.B. (1968)—other similar disasters occurred in the succeeding decades, including the Amoco Cadiz in 1978, the Tanio in 1980, and the Erika in 1999. Veolia, through its subsidiary SARP Industries, supported coastal cleaning operations. Jean-François Nogrette testifies: “Every time there is an industrial accident somewhere, our teams are urgently called upon, with both technical and security stakes. So, a large part of the most prevalent pollution has been treated by SARP Industries units during oil spills since the Erika.”
At the same time, Brittany was beginning its fight against green algae. The proliferation of these plants has been polluting the Breton beaches every summer for fifty years, making the region the third largest “green tide” site in the world, behind the Venetian lagoon and the coastline of Qingdao in China. This phenomenon, first observed in 1971 in the Bay of Lannion in the Côtes d'Armor, is caused by pig farming and agricultural fertilizers. The nitrate runoff from these activities into the soil and waterways leads to the proliferation of green algae, which suffocate aquatic fauna and flora. Depending on the year, between 75 and 115 sites are affected, and forty to fifty municipalities collect between twenty thousand and forty thousand tons of stranded algae to prevent tourists from going to other seaside resorts. In addition to the nitrate runoff into the soil and groundwater, even drinking water has occasionally been threatened in Brittany. This situation is taken seriously by operators like Veolia, who, among other things, developed the Aquisafe project with the SMEGA in response to the closure, in 2009, of the Ic drinking water plant due to high nitrate levels. Aquisafe is a research project on buffer zones in rural areas. These zones are landscape elements intended to limit the transfer of contaminants to receiving aquatic environments such as embankments, ditches, and wetlands. The tests carried out with the implementation of these buffer zones at pollution points in the watershed have demonstrated that these zones result in a significant reduction in pollutants present, particularly nitrates. These actions have been coupled with rising awareness among local farmers of the problems caused by pesticides, resulting in a reduction in their use and an improvement in water quality. More broadly, an entire approach to water quality has become popular, prioritizing pollution prevention over treatment and mobilizing treatment only when necessary.
From Water Preservation to Habitat Preservation: Increasingly Ambitious Goals
The way to characterize water quality itself has become more precise over time. “The construction of water quality has evolved, especially thanks to the exponential development of quality descriptors from 1850 to today,” taking into account criteria that are primarily important for habitats, emphasizes Marie-Christine Huau, the Water and Climate Director at Veolia. Several ages or periods can be distinguished in this history. The first phase is that of pharmacists, who undertook an inventory of hydrothermal sources based on physical variables: the values of mineral ions, temperature, pH, TSS (total suspended solids), and hardness (like the information found on a mineral water bottle). Then, still in the nineteenth century, came the era of analytical chemistry: oxygen, nitrogen, nitrates, and major ions were measured. This period was quickly followed by the time of civil engineers and river chemistry, with the measurement of degradable organic carbon and biological oxygen demand. The focus was mainly on protecting populations against waterborne diseases and problems related to bacteria that could be found in drinking water.
The qualification evolved between the 1950s and 1960s. As water became a resource for aquaculture, industry, and agriculture, biologic variables based on the fauna in the water attracted the attention of geochemists. This was a time of sanitary risk, when people began to ensure that bathing waters did not contain bacteria or pesticides. “We start[ed] to observe aquatic ecosystems from the perspective of their uses,” says Marie-Christine Huau. “From the 1980s, academic research focuses on understanding the functioning of the aquatic system” before entering the era of ecological quality of the natural environment in the early 2000s. “We will look at how this ecosystem works: Is there good oxygen circulation? Do we live well in it? Scientists shift to a hydrobiological approach using biotic indicators on different species of biodiversity. The goal is the preservation of aquatic habitats,” highlights the agronomy engineer. This is particularly important, as ecosystems, sometimes resources and sometimes receiving environments, are essential elements for biodiversity and for the common interest.
The broadening of approaches to water quality, taking into account its effects on humans as well as on the environment, has been accompanied by an increased focus on ecosystems, leading Veolia to invest not only in the sanitary quality of water but also in its environmental quality. The restoration of the underwater ecosystem of Cap-Sicié, near Toulon, is symbolic of this. For decades, sewage wastewater was directly discharged into the sea, causing severe degradation of the environment. In the late 1990s, to address the situation and respond to the first alert raised by a diver in 1980, a wastewater treatment plant was built by Veolia, under the impetus of the authorities. As expected, it quickly restored water quality, but contrary to expectations, it did not lead to the return of life to the environment. To make this possible, the Remora project was initiated in 2011 by the Veolia Foundation, the Rhône-Mediterranean-Corsica Water Agency, and the Paul Ricard Oceanographic Institute. It created artificial reefs composed of lightweight structures made of fiberglass and epoxy resin, capable of adapting to the waves, reefs designed to serve as habitats and protection for microfauna and microflora. The return of life was finally confirmed: in 2016, field research revealed the presence of squid, cuttlefish, and wrasse spawns, as well as juvenile crustaceans, octopuses, and fish.
Today, it is finally possible to solve problems of industrial discharges that have long impacted the environment. This is the case with the pollution affecting the coves of Marseille, downstream of the alumina production by the Gardanne plant, operated by Alteo. Ordered to bring its plant into compliance as quickly as possible, the company had to find a solution in order to maintain its historical activity in the region. This is a strategic issue for the area, considering the jobs at stake and the French sovereignty represented by alumina production, an essential component for the manufacturing of smartphone screens, electric vehicle batteries, and tiles. Veolia enabled Alteo to treat its effluents after two years of experimentation and the creation of a biological treatment unit using bacteria to degrade suspended organic matter. “The treatment plant we created uses biomass: it replicates what happens in nature using bacteria that eat pollution,” says Anne-Laure Galmel, project manager for the Mediterranean region at Veolia Water France.
The result is the highest quality of residual water in the alumina sector worldwide and satisfaction expressed by environmental advocates, such as Didier Réault, director of the Calanques National Park: “Alteo has succeeded in managing its discharge in compliance with European standards. It's a real success. We have succeeded in reconciling both ecology and the economy.”
However, the protection of the environment remains a vast challenge, first because wastewater treatment and pollution prevention in general are still not implemented everywhere, but also because climate change is reshaping the ways in which environmental protection is approached. It disrupts the water cycle, reducing river flows and concentrating pollution and salinity, all of which pose threats to species. The struggles and solutions must continue.
© Veolia Media Library - Salah Benacer
In New Orleans: Resilience between Infrastructure and Ecosystem Protection
For over thirty years, the Sewerage & Water Board of New Orleans (SWBNO) has partnered with Veolia to manage water sanitation, creating one of the largest public-private partnership agreements for wastewater treatment in the United States. This partnership now goes beyond that, ensuring climate resilience for a city, New Orleans, which has come to symbolize the risks of climate change after the devastating Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Over the years, this partnership has led to improvements in the performance of both wastewater treatment plants, which in turn has strengthened the ecosystem of the Mississippi River and achieved environmental compliance for New Orleans. This provides a sense of security for a city located below sea level and near multiple bodies of water, making it highly vulnerable to natural disasters.
Hurricane Katrina itself served as an opportunity to enhance the resilience of the facilities. When it struck New Orleans in 2005, the East Bank plant was flooded under five meters of water.
The staff was evacuated by helicopter. Once the waters receded, Veolia called in additional teams to work around the clock. Their dedication, along with the mobilization of resources from the group on an international scale, allowed the plant to be drained in thirty days and full treatment to resume within three months. Veolia invested thirty million dollars to immediately restore the plant, without waiting for the insurance reimbursement. Consequently, to prevent the recurrence of such disasters, Veolia now incorporates climate protection and resilience measures into every investment project.
Today, Veolia's partnership with New Orleans goes beyond wastewater treatment infrastructure. The company supports a wetlands restoration project near the East Bank plant in the Lower Ninth Ward, contributes to neighborhood associations, and has donated over one million dollars to aid hurricane victims. Veolia also supports local universities by recruiting students interested in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) careers and has directed over 30 percent of its local expenditures to disadvantaged businesses in New Orleans.
The Return of Trout to the Rivers of the Czech Republic
Over the past twenty years, the water quality of all Czech rivers has significantly improved. According to the Czech Environmental Agency (CENIA), this progress is primarily due to the development of wastewater treatment. Veolia, a prominent player in the country, actively contributes to the enhancement of its water quality. This long-term effort has paid off: several locally endangered species have made a comeback in the country's waterways.
To facilitate the reintroduction of trout, the “Trout Way” project was launched in 2011. Veolia initiated this project in collaboration with the Freshwater Giants association, founded by television presenter and extreme angler specializing in travel and natural history Jakub Vágner. The project's objective is to support the return of salmonids to Czech rivers over a five-year period. The initial results have been quite encouraging: over 60 percent of the three tons of reintroduced trout in the Střela River, located in western Bohemia, have survived.
In total, nine tons of trout have been released into Czech rivers with a survival rate of 70 percent. The program has been praised by the country’s government and media. By contributing to the improvement of the ecological state of rivers and by benefiting local communities, this project has inspired the reintroduction of sturgeon to the Danube River in Romania, as well as other, similar initiatives in Hungary and Slovakia.
Mont-Saint-Michel : A Dam to Save the Monument from Sand
In the early 2000s, one of France's most iconic monuments was at risk of being completely buried in sand. After dominating the bay that now bears its name for a millennium, Mont-Saint-Michel, admired over the centuries, was threatened: the accumulation of thousands of cubic meters of sediments carried by the tides was gradually connecting it to the mainland, causing it to lose its status as an island.
A major challenge had to be overcome to save the natural setting in which the monument stands, to which Victor Hugo paid homage in 1881 with his lyrical words: “Saint-Michel rose alone on the bitter waves, Chéops of the West, Pyramid of the Seas.”
After studies were conducted by the mixed syndicate formed by the relevant local authorities, created by the State in 1997, the dam was built between 2006 and 2008 and officially inaugurated in 2015. Veolia's teams were entrusted with its operation, tasked with harnessing the power of the Couesnon, the river that flows into the bay, to flush out the accumulating sediments when the sea allows.
Claude Laruelle, former regional director for Normandy and deputy CEO in charge of finance, digital, and procurement for the group, recalls: “It all started, as often is the case, with a call for tenders. This one was a bit special, as it involved being the operator of the dam that would protect the mount.”
To secure the operation of this engineering structure, Veolia relied on its ability to build trusting relationships with stakeholders in the field. “There was an immediate understanding with the director of the mixed syndicate,” says the deputy CEO. “He needed someone reliable, capable of putting themselves in his shoes and engaging in quality dialogue to establish balanced contractual clauses.” Veolia's expertise in operating a service, with all its implications—“establishing standby services, ensuring night shifts and staggered work hours, ensuring information flow”—played a crucial role in obtaining the contract.
However, there is still a significant challenge. While the operating principle is simple—“the water is stored at high tide. It comes in, we close it off, and when the tide goes down, we lift the immense gates, which act as a sort of flush that pushes back the sand,” explains Laruelle—Veolia has never been involved with dams before. Relying on the fundamentals, the teams are developing high-pressure hydraulic expertise to complete the project.
“This project truly symbolizes what the company can do,” continues Laruelle. “We rely on our intimate understanding of the territory, develop new skills, and organize ourselves to manage both the long term and the very short term challenges.” Managed closely and locally by the Avranches agency, the contract has contributed to Veolia's lasting presence “in the local landscape of La Manche.”
“Here, the possibility of an island has been restored,” declared French President Emmanuel Macron on June 5, 2023, during the celebration of the abbey's millennium. “In just a few years, the silting has been interrupted” thanks to this significant project that has been added “to the chain of times, from the first monks’ construction on a mountain ravaged by storms a thousand years ago, to the triumph of human ingenuity over slope, gravity, and weight, through all the destructions and reconstructions.” According to the president, it is a testimony that we need to remain “confident in our strength and humble in the face of the elements.”
- CORBIN, Alain. The Foul and the Fragrant: Odor and the French Social Imagination. Leamington Spa: Berg, 1986.
↩︎ - ROSANVALLON, Pierre. The demands of liberty: civil society in France since the Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007. ↩︎
- VRIGNON, Alexis. “Écologie et politique dans les années 1970”. Vingtième Siècle Revue d’Histoire, no. 113 (January-March 2012). ↩︎