Saint Tropez’s beach is being killed by money, laments Bardot
THE famed Pampelonne beach outside the town of Saint Tropez “is losing its soul”, according to Brigitte Bardot, the actress who put it on the map in the Fifties, amid a bitter row over which clubs can operate along the coveted strip.
Pampelonne, a three-mile stretch of sand near St Tropez, on the Riviera, has been a sun-kissed haven for the jet set ever since Bardot was immortalised frolicking on its shores in Roger Vadim’s And God Created Woman, in 1956.
Today, its beach clubs are a magnet for beautiful people, actors and millionaires, from Beyoncé to Leonardo Dicaprio. Valets at clubs like Bagatelle – owned by the Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev – park clients’ Bugattis as they dine on fish or enjoy a massage on a private lounger with their mega-yachts moored nearby.
Last week, Donald Trump Jnr was spotted dancing under a sombrero at Nikki Beach for the birthday of a business associate. His mother, Ivana, preferred a spot of shopping in one of St Tropez’s many high-end boutiques.
However, unbeknown to the jet set, the party is over for the owners of a string of “historic” beach clubs.
This week, the local town hall of Ramatuelle, with administrative control over Pampelonne beach, cast a hotly-awaited vote on the rights to operate clubs on the strip. It announced 30 winners for leases lasting from 2019 to 2030, with the proviso that they respect environmental norms, meaning beach clubs must be dismantled in the winter months to allow the sandy area to “recover” from tourist wear and tear, and then rebuilt.
In a surprise result, a string of luxury hotels, some like Byblos, Hôtel de Paris and l’ermitage operating in St Tropez, were granted permission to run some stretches, while other well-known beach clubs such as Bagatelle, a club with among the most A-list celebrities, were thrown out.
Reacting to the decision, Bardot said she was “scandalised and very sad”.
“They are killing the soul of Pampelonne,” she warned in an interview with Paris Match. “This is an era when they’re going to ruin it all. Money will kill this place, as it already has in Saint Tropez,” said the former sex symbolturned animal welfare activist.
“At first, there was nothing. Then beaches appeared after the film And God Created Woman. Each was different, funny and unconventional. There was joy, it was a symbol of freedom,” she recalled.
“But with this reorganisation project, this beach will become monotone when it was so charming. It’s tragic.”
In particular, she was appalled that the town hall had not renewed the contract for Les Jumeaux beach club, an institution for 31 years, which lost out to the luxury hotel La Réserve, where fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld is a regular. Expressing doubts over the impartiality of the decision-making process, the owner of Jumeaux, Jeanclaude Moreu, said he would appeal.
“The beach is being taken over by ‘palaces’ that will charge sky-high prices, whereas it should remain accessible to all,” he told The Daily Telegraph, pointing out that the number of sun loungers will drop from 5,200 to 3,200.
“Brigitte Bardot is right: this beach was created in the Sixties for families, each area with its own specificity.
“The charm of the beach will erased with a stroke of a pen.”
The mayor of Ramatuelle, Roland Bruno, said the aim was to make the beach more sustainable, accusing Mr Moreu of seeking to “obtain an advantage be over rivals in unfair conditions”.
“As in all competitions, a majority of tenders studied cannot be accepted,” he told Le Point, advising the owner to appeal.
Jean-philippe Cartier, who co-manages l’ermitage hotel and won the right to run a 450-seat beach restaurant, said draconian environmental rules would be respected. Electric boats would pick up millionaires from their yachts to reduce the carbon footprint, he said.
Patrice de Colmont, of Club 55, whose parents served food to Bardot during her Fifties film shoot, and who won the right to continue running that stretch, said he thought the town hall had “tried to decide in the interests of the local community”.