But more pertinent was the shrine set up in an annexe of the community library and decked with wreaths for the families of the dead people who had lost babies, teenage children and so many loved ones on, as the villagers saw it, ground that now immutably belongs to the grieving.
In places like Le Vernet and the adjoining town of Seynes-les-Alpes, the dominant desire was to help, in any form possible. A local mayor said he had been inundated with calls from residents offering accommodation for relatives following reports that hotel rooms in the area had been booked out.
The sense of responsibility to the bereaved also applied to what the forbidding but otherwise ordinary mountain in their midst now stands for.
François Balique, the mayor of Le Vernet, told The Independent: There are 150 people who live in this village and there were 150 people on the plane. The number is pertinent the equivalent of our village being wiped away. We take the families of those on that plane to our hearts and tell them that our home in now theirs.
But there must also be permanence. We will make the mountain a place that is for the families. We are now the guardians of this place and the memory of those whose lives were ended here in a few moments.
