History - Tignes, France
Tignes began it’s life in the 13th century with 2 villages, Brevieres and Tignes itself, as farming communities that are rumoured to have also profited from smuggling from Italy.
In the 1920’s the first rumours of a hydro-electric dam being built were banded around. The traditional life of Tignes soon changed though after the Second World War. The reconstruction of the country required a lot of electricity, and the French national electricity company was urged to exploit the natural resources, especially hydro-electricity in the mountains and construct a dam at Tignes. It was estimated that damming the river at Tignes could provide approximately 10% of the country’s electricity requirement. There was huge opposition from the people of Tignes, as the dam meant that the village would be completely buried beneath the newly created Lac Du Chevril, and by 1952 the town priest who was the only educated person able to put up a coherent argument against the forces of the government had been killed in the war. However, on 10 March 1952 the schools were closed and on 26 March 1952, the department of Savoie ordered to open the floodgates and the lake filled up and the ancient village of Tignes was lost forever. However, France soon joined the nuclear age and the dam was then never used!
In 1957, the inhabitants of Tignes decided to set up a ski resort, and money from the Government meant that Tignes could re-invent itself into the ski resort we see today.
The main resort of le Lac is located at a height of 2,100m with Val Claret just a little higher at the foot of the glacier, and le lavachet situated just below le Lac. Tignes les Boisses is located just on top of the dam, and Tignes Les Brevierres remains as it has done at the base of the dam.
With the neigbouring ski resort of Val-d'-Isère, Tignes has set up the big ski domain called Espace Killy (after Jean-Claude Killy, the legendary winner of the 1968 Olympic Games and promoter of the 1992 Games in Savoy). In 1992, the first Olympic official competitions in acrobatic ski (mogles, jump and ballet) took place in Tignes.
