Krakatoa, South of Paris (Cont.)

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Outside Magaine November 2002

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Out There
Krakatoa, South of Paris (Cont.)

UNDERSTANDABLY, the appearance of bulldozers in the Parc des Volcans brought French environmentalists to the barricades, and they're still pissed.

"Giscard is an idiot," says Marcel Breugnot, a retired septuagenarian tax inspector and volcano buff who heads a grassroots conservation group called the Association of the Puy-de-D(tm)me, named after a dormant volcano that was the area's top attraction until Vulcania arrived. "He says he loves the volcanoes, but he's ruining the environment by building Vulcania, just because he wants more tourists."

But there was never much doubt that Giscard would prevail. The park's site was reclaimed from a former military munitions dump, and even the heavy machinery was sensitized: Tractors and backhoes were lubricated with safflower oil to avoid tainting the water table. The park was designed to be almost invisible from the 360-degree observation area atop the Puy de D(tm)me, which is roughly a mile away.

Today, the most striking thing about driving up to Vulcania is what you don't see. It's pretty much concealed until you're directly in front of it, and even then it's far less obtrusive than your average Six Flags. Austrian architect Hans Hollein, with much prodding from Giscard, delivered a pleasant structure that looks like Dr. No's headquarters redecorated by Le Corbusier.

Inside, there are no garish colors, only tasteful earth tones. Visitors enter down a corkscrew ramp molded from volcanic rock. The signature volcanic cone awaits at the bottom. It has a honeycombed titanium core and doesn't blow smoke or ash, but it does draw natural light down several stories.

Outside the main auditoriums are several rooms filled with dioramas and touch-screen exhibits whose content was vetted by Giscard's team of volcanologists. The parking lot is unpaved. Unlike at an American park, where you'd be flogged if you tried to smuggle in a sandwich, visitors are encouraged to picnic on the landscaped grounds. Naturally, you can get a sit-down meal inside—with a nice bottle of wine.

So what's there to be upset about? Just ask Danielle Auroi, 58, a Green Party representative to the European Union and one of Vulcania's loudest critics. A former geography teacher at Clermont-Ferrand's Blaise Pascal University, she spent last spring taking on Giscard's son Louis for the regional-president job that his father vacated. (She lost in June.) We meet at her campaign HQ, tucked into a dark corner in the oldest part of the city.

"The Puy-de-Dôme is a green tourism place," declares Auroi, who wears her hair in an Amélie cut. "People come to the Auvergne to see the mountains and the water, not a lot of hotels and restaurants and McDonald's."

Leaving aside French knee-jerkery about McDonald's—there's only one in the entire Auvergne—such fretting seems outdated at this point: For most Auvergnats, the real worry now is that the whole thing may not succeed. The business plan is to create jobs and goose the off-season economy by luring 500,000 visitors in each of the first four years, then 800,000 per year after that, preferably affluent ones who will spend a night or three in local hotels.

The initial numbers are encouraging, but only time will tell if Vulcania has staying power. With the doors open and Giscard off in Brussels, people are starting to fret, tuning out his Music Man patter about tourism and education and wondering if it was all just a cover for another motive: self-glorification.

"When he was president of the republic, Giscard did not build the biggest thing," says Auroi, referring to a tradition among French statesmen to leave behind public works as reminders of their greatness—Louis XIV's Versailles, Georges Pompidou's arts center in Paris. "François Mitterand built the pyramid at the Louvre," says Auroi. "For Giscard, Vulcania is his pyramid."

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