On 14 June 2015, Valaisans agreed to endow the project of the century with a fund: the third Rhône correction (R3), a vast flood-protection programme along the valley floor, from Gletsch to Lake Geneva.
The memory of the 1987 floods, of Brig devastated in 1993 and of the 2000 floods fed the project. The Rhône plain concentrates most of the canton's population, industry and infrastructure: a major flood there would threaten billions of francs in damage.
To finance the cantonal share, the Grand Council had voted a decree drawing 60 million from the 21st-century infrastructure fund. The SVP and parts of farming, worried about land use and cost, launched a referendum. The people ruled in favour of the fund.
▲ The Yes — 56.95% 58,862 votes in favour (56.95%) validated the financing fund, giving the canton the means to launch the priority protection works. | ▼ The No — 43.05% 44,493 votes against (43.05%), on a 50.64% turnout. The opposition, led by the SVP and part of the farming community, denounced a project deemed oversized and hungry for farmland. |
The campaign's actors
▲ Yes camp • The cantonal government, with Jacques Melly (CVP, head of the Department of Transport, Infrastructure and the Environment) • A broad coalition: CVP, FDP, SP and the Greens • The municipalities of the Rhône plain • Flood-protection circles | ▼ No camp • The SVP of Valais (author of the referendum) • Part of the farming community (loss of arable land) • Opponents of the project's cost and scale |
Arguments and verdicts
▲ Arguments FOR (Yes camp) Securing the plain, averting billions in damage « A vital project to protect people and the economy. » Verdict: ✓~ The risk remains real and protection is advancing, but slowly. The threat is anything but theoretical: the June 2024 Rhône flood reignited the debate over urgency. Priority works have indeed begun (Visp from 2009, then other stretches), but protecting the whole plain is far from complete. Source: RTS, 2024; FOEN A multi-generational undertaking « A work for several generations. » Verdict: ✓~ Acknowledged as vital, but slowed by the canton itself. No one disputes the project's fundamental usefulness. But its decades-long implementation suffered major delays — to the point that the authority defending it ended up rethinking its scale. Source: Espazium; vs.ch/Rhône | ▼ Arguments AGAINST (No camp) An oversized and too-costly project « A disproportionate project. » Verdict: ✓~ The state itself ended up proving them right. Strikingly, in May 2024 the cantonal government judged its own development plan «disproportionate» and «too ambitious» — going «well beyond» the FOEN's objectives — and decided to revise and downsize it. Nearly nine years after the vote, the referendum critique found an unexpected echo. Source: RTS, May 2024 Excessive encroachment on farmland « Too much good land is being sacrificed. » Verdict: ~ Partly vindicated by the ongoing revision. Widening the riverbed meant mobilising farmland on the plain. The downsizing decided in 2024 aims precisely to reduce the scale of the encroachment — though the revised project is not yet settled. Source: Le Temps; RTS, 2024 |
The factual record
56.95% yes to the fund | 60 m cantonal fund (CHF) | 2009 first works (Visp) | 2024 plan «disproportionate» |
The people said yes to safety, and they had good reasons: the Rhône plain is the canton's economic lung, and the memory of floods is vivid. On this point, the Yes camp held the stronger argument.
But the referendum opposition, outvoted at the polls, was not entirely wrong. In 2024 it was the cantonal government itself that called the plan «disproportionate» and launched its revision. The criticisms of scale and farmland use, swept aside in 2015, return through the front door.
The real loser may be the timetable. Between administrative slowness and downsizing, the promised protection is late — and the 2024 flood is a reminder that the Rhône does not read decrees.