Beaches: black flags on the Riviera

The Surfrider Foundation Europe association has made its list of French polluted beaches public on Tuesday morning. "Black flags" assigned to cities which number is decreasing since the first list in 1998: 118 in 1998; 69 this year. On the Riviera, three cities have pointed at: Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat for the Espalmadour beach, in the C category; Villefranche-sur-mer for the roadstead; Cagnes-sur-mer for the Neptune beach , in the C category. In the Var, Saint-Tropez, for the Graniers beach and Toulon for the Baie du Levant beach are also in the list.

On its site (see Surfrider-europe.org), the association explains that they have selected beaches with a real pollution problem which origins are known and which solutions are easy to set. As far as the Mediterranean sea is concerned, they have notice that the quality of Mediterranean waters is more and more affected by nautical tourism (wastes, fuel oil, sewerage,…). This situation is getting worse as there is no tide and because of current coming from Italy (Liguria current)".