What if the French Alps 2030 Olympic project violates French and international law? A citizens' collective recently brought their concerns before a United Nations oversight body and France's administrative court. Residents of the Alps have been asking for months that the organizing committee and public authorities hold a debate about the mega-event planned in their region – an event requiring significant amounts of artificial snow and the construction of new hospitality infrastructure. But so far, their warnings about the impact the Winter Games would have on already vulnerable mountain ecosystems due to climate change have been met with silence.

"This is the first time that citizens have brought before the UN the lack of public participation in the Olympic Games organization process by the project promoters, in order to ensure compliance with the Aarhus Convention, which France signed and ratified [in 2002]," explained Jérôme Graefe, the lawyer representing the plaintiffs. By doing so, France pledged to guarantee the right to information, public participation in decision-making and access to justice in environmental matters.

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