Concrete consequences
Project Impact
Road traffic, land sealing, aquifer, agriculture, biodiversity, disturbance to residents: the concrete consequences of Europa Vallée on the territory.
Road Traffic
No public transit is planned. All visitors and employees would arrive by car, through villages not designed for this traffic volume.
Affected Roads
Main road through Diebolsheim, Sundhouse and Schoenau. Would become the primary access route. A narrow road passing through villages with no bypass.
Secondary road to the Rhinau ferry. Already used by cross-border traffic heading to Europa-Park. Runs through Rhinau and Diebolsheim.
Motorway already congested at peak hours. Visitors from Strasbourg and Colmar would use these exits, worsening existing bottlenecks.
Wittisheim, Bindernheim, Friesenheim, Saasenheim: these linear villages with no bypasses would suffer transit traffic to the resort. Paradox: these municipalities are currently investing in traffic calming measures in response to complaints from residents. Europa Vallée would undo those efforts.
Villages in the Path
Diebolsheim
675 inhab.Direct project site. The D20 runs through the village. No bypass.
Sundhouse
1,808 inhab.Second project municipality. Traffic from the A35 exit via Benfeld.
Rhinau
2,723 inhab.Access to the ferry to Rust. Already affected by cross-border traffic.
Schoenau
587 inhab.On the D20 between Sundhouse and Rhinau. Linear village with no alternative route.
Wittisheim
2,085 inhab.Transit traffic from the A35. Local roads not designed for this volume.
Friesenheim
615 inhab.On the Erstein–Sundhouse axis. At risk of overflow traffic.
Comparison: The Center Parcs project in Roybon (Isère), a comparable project halted after 13 years, planned 990 cottages and 380,000 visitors/year on 202 ha — and already posed major access problems. For Europa Vallée, no capacity figures have been made public despite plans that the Mack family says are "nearly finished".
Sources: ADIRA, France Bleu. Populations: INSEE, 2023 census (BANATIC)
Land Sealing
The project would destroy between 60 and 250 hectares of natural and agricultural land — an irreversible loss in direct contradiction with France's ZAN law.
What do 60 hectares look like?
And 250 hectares (high estimate) = 4x these figures.
ZAN Zero Net Artificialization Law
France's Climate and Resilience Act (2021) requires a 50% reduction in land sealing by 2031 and zero net artificialization by 2050. Sealing 60 to 250 hectares runs directly counter to this national trajectory.
What we lose: irreversible
Living soils
The Ried's soils took millennia to form. Once paved over, they do not regenerate.
Absorption capacity
Permeable soils absorb rainwater and recharge the aquifer. Concrete creates runoff and flooding.
Natural habitats
Wet meadows, hedgerows, breeding grounds — habitats that dozens of protected species depend on.
Ried landscape
The very identity of the area — meadows, open horizons, tranquillity — would be irreversibly altered.
Sources: Rue89 Strasbourg, France Bleu
Water & Aquifer
The Ried is the natural outcropping zone of Western Europe's largest aquifer. Any land sealing directly threatens this vital resource.
The Rhine Aquifer
3,200 km² in Alsace, 35 billion m³ of water — Western Europe's largest freshwater reserve.
It supplies drinking water to over 7 million people on both sides of the Rhine.
The Ried is where this aquifer naturally surfaces — this is what creates the phreatic rivers, wet meadows and Donnerloecher.
Impermeabilization
60 to 250 hectares of concrete, car parks and buildings would prevent rainwater from infiltrating to the aquifer, reducing its natural recharge.
Runoff and pollution
Runoff from car parks and roads carries hydrocarbons, heavy metals and microplastics directly into waterways and the shallow aquifer.
Water consumption
A hotel resort of this scale (pools, landscaping, restaurants, laundry) would consume enormous volumes of drinking water, drawn from the same aquifer.
Wastewater
Treating wastewater from thousands of daily visitors would overwhelm local treatment plants, which are sized for small rural communities.
Agriculture & Land
The project targets active farmland — not wastelands. This is an argument that did not exist in the Roybon case (mostly forest) and strengthens the opponents' position.
Active farmland lost
The targeted plots are currently farmed by local growers. Their sealing would mean a net loss of food production capacity, at a time when food sovereignty is a national priority.
Land speculation
The project announcement is already fuelling speculation. The Mack family created a property company (SCI) in Diebolsheim in July 2024 — one month after announcing the project was "on hold" — suggesting land acquisitions are underway. Agricultural land prices risk becoming unaffordable for farmers.
Confédération Paysanne support
The Confédération Paysanne (small farmers' union), a member of the opposition coalition, defends the agricultural vocation of the territory. The food sovereignty argument adds a legal angle absent from the Roybon fight.
Sources: Pappers — SCI Diebolsheim, Rue89 Strasbourg
Biodiversity
The project site directly borders Natura 2000, Ramsar and ZNIEFF areas. Critically endangered species are documented there.
Natura 2000 — directly on the zone
The site FR4201797 "Rhin-Ried-Bruch" (20,086 ha) explicitly names Diebolsheim, Sundhouse, Rhinau and Schoenau in its designation order. 37 species of Community interest (Annex II), 14 habitat types including 5 priority habitats (updated 21 January 2025). A stronger position than Roybon, where Natura 2000 was 1 km away.
INPNRamsar Convention
The "Upper Rhine / Oberrhein" site (22,413 ha on the French side) is one of only 22 transboundary Ramsar sites worldwide. According to Ramsar factsheet no. 1810, an average of 55,000 migratory birds stop over each year. This argument did not exist in the Roybon case.
Ramsar factsheetAdjacent ZNIEFF (Eurasian Curlew)
ZNIEFF 420007186 "Ried de Trulygraben" (Herbsheim, Boofzheim, Obenheim) — directly adjacent to Diebolsheim — documents the Eurasian Curlew as a determinant species, with 86 species of interest.
INPNEurasian Curlew
Numenius arquata
Europe's largest wading bird, an emblem of the Ried. From 300 pairs in the 1960s to 4 breeding pairs in 2024, none of which successfully raised young. According to LPO Alsace, likely zero breeding pairs in 2025 — local extinction is imminent. Its last strongholds are in the Black Ried, near Herbsheim.
Its last nesting sites are in the Ried, in municipalities directly adjacent to the project zone. The municipality of Wittisheim itself describes it as "the emblematic bird of the Ried".
European Hamster
Cricetus cricetus
France's last population, protected by a National Action Plan. 52% decline in burrows in 2025: only 557 burrows counted versus 1,155 in 2024. Sealing agricultural land in the Ried would further reduce available habitat for this species on the brink of extinction.
2025 count — Hamster conservation associationDiscover the Alsatian Ried
Ecosystem, protected species, decline — full page
Disturbance to Residents
Beyond traffic, a hotel resort of this scale would permanently transform daily life for residents of surrounding municipalities.
Noise
Continuous road traffic, resort activities (pools, entertainment, deliveries), multi-year construction. The Ried's tranquillity — one of its key assets — would be destroyed.
Light pollution
24/7 lighting of buildings, car parks and access roads. The Ried is currently one of Alsace's darkest areas — essential for nocturnal wildlife (bats, owls, insects).
Construction phase
Years of works: heavy machinery, material lorries, dust, vibrations. Construction traffic would use the same narrow roads as residents.
Quality of life
Property pressure, rising cost of living, transformation of rural villages into tourist transit zones. The very identity of the area would be altered.
Rhine Crossing: Total Dead End
The Europa Vallée project assumes a direct link to Europa-Park in Rust (Germany). No transport solution exists or is being developed.
Cable car
AbandonedWould have overflown the Taubergiessen nature reserve. Moratorium in 2018, permanently abandoned in 2023.
Road bridge
No projectWould need to cross protected areas on both sides. No study, no funding. Estimated cost: hundreds of millions of euros.
Tunnel
Mentioned in the pressProhibitive cost, no feasibility study. Only mentioned in German media.
Rhinau ferry
In serviceCapacity: 27 vehicles, 1 crossing every 15 min, free. Completely inadequate for a hotel resort receiving thousands of visitors.
Contradiction with Rhinaissance 2.0
The Interreg programme Rhinaissance 2.0 is simultaneously investing European funds in the renaturalization of 1,650 hectares of Rhine habitats in this very area. Building a bridge or tunnel directly contradicts these European commitments to ecological restoration.
Rhinaissance 2.0Sources: France Bleu, ValdYerres, France 3
This territory does not need this project.
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