Tazieff/Allègre, the volcano war

In 1976, the antagonism between two men broke into the media. Their name : Haroun Tazieff, vulcanologist already known from the general public and Claude Allègre, researcher and brand new director of the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris. The background : the eruption of the Grande Soufrière of Guadeloupe and the decision to evacuate or not the 70 000 people potentially threatened. Behind this invidual confrontation, two conceptions of vulcanology and natural disaster risk management criystallized. A crisis that changed forever the two men : Allègre draw from this episode an ardent desire to equalize his adversary in scientific popularization and media. The vulcanologist, from his part, kept a persistent resentment that would sometimes turn into obsession.