Right outside of Saint Tropez lies a stretch of sand of renowned extremes of money and sex appeal, as well as natural Provencal feel, filled with stunning and gorgeous girls all over and men who just stares at them for appreciation of their beauty – in the Pampelonne Beach. All the important people and celebrities flock to Pampelonne Beach ever since it was discovered in 1955 by Roger Vadim and Brigitte Bardot.
The beach is a very popular destination and is often flocked by the hot crowd who are stunning, sexy, gorgeous and beautiful and the entire beach just oozes sex appeal as everyone just sit back, relax and chill with a glass of champagne in their hands as well as dine to the expensive cuisine that the beach has to offer, but all could be changed forever from a place of hedonism to a somber beach if it ever falls into the hands on the local councilors of Ramatuelle who would make the beach in their own ways.
The stretch of 4 kilometers beach of Pampellone is often link with the traits of having plenty of family managed restaurants which looks like beach huts and are overpriced. All together there are 28 of then, and each one of them boasts different feel and atmosphere and colors that just fill the beach spreading from Club 55 to the fun times at Nikki Beach as well as the sexiness of La Voile Rouge where topless sunbathing is allowed, much to the delight of guys.
It is not a surprise that these beach huts and family restaurants on Pampellone beach are able to attract over 30,000 visitors a day and earn up to 40 million euros in a year, as even popular celebrities like Bono, Paris Hilton, Puff Diddy, Beyoncè, Kate Moss, Eva Longoria, Gisele Bundchen, Alessandra Ambrosio, Cindy Crawford, Roman Abramovich, Heidi Klum, Madonna, Tara Reid and Naomi Campbell visits this beach often.
Roger Vadim directed ‘And God Created Women’ alongside wife Brigitte Bardot in 1955 at this beach which was hard to access and was only populated with fisherman. Roger spotted a couple cooking outdoors on the beach, and he thought it was a beach bistro and asked them if they could cook. The couple obliged, and they cooked for the crew.
They were Monsieur and Madame de Colmont, who later opened up Club 55, named after the year it was found. With Brigitte Bardot promoting the beach in Hollywood, it attracted plenty of visitors to Pampellone beach.
Soon, Paul Tomaselli opened up La Voile Rouge in 1972.
Bardot was not happy when the beach was soon filled with establishments as she believes that it has destroyed and invaded her ‘Eden’. The beach however still remained popular, and soon after other popular establishments were set up such as Balligand’s Aqua Club, Bora Bora, Nikki Beach, Tahiti and Cabane Bambou.
The councilors of Ramatuelle wants the owners to demolish their huts and wants all of the owners to re-apply for licenses and they plan to cut down from 28 to 23 establishments, and this certainly caused an angry crowd of owners when they heard about it.
Owner of the Aqua Club, Carol Balligand claims that she and the other owners are ready to fight for their rights.
Carol Balligand is also the chairwoman of the ‘Save Pampellone Campaign’. Once, they decided to close down all of their huts, which results in no one coming down to the beach. Although they made quite a loss in one day’s sale, they made a point that the beach huts are the attraction of pampallone beach.
The owners are even angrier when the Ramatuelle councilors to move half of the establishments to a newly constructed artificial beach, which does not even have an actual view to the sea in order to reduce the space these beach huts occupy up to 1/3. The Mayor of Ramatouille, Roland Bruno claims that what he plans to do is the right thing.
He claims that the main identity of Pampellone beach is being overshadowed by the glorified beach huts and establishments, and that Pampellone could be much better without them. He also claims that the club establishments are eroding the sand at the beach which causes damage to the plants and species, which should be protected.
The owners of these beach clubs and establishments are worried of the future of Pampellone beach. What is currently an international attraction made up of family chains of establishments could be taken away and change the entire spirit that makes Pampelonne what it is today.
They are also worried that if the councilors of Ramatuelle implement a long term contract to run establishment on the beach, they could no longer afford it, and it would soon be taken over by international companies with greater resources who could afford it. This makes them feel that the councilors actually only wants to make more money, and is saddened that the total of 1.3 million Euros that they pay to the council is deemed as not enough.
Out to help the owners are celebrity regulars: Vic Beckham, Bruce Willis, Elisabeth Hurley, who frequently visit the establishments on Pampellone beach. They are coming out with petitions to be signed by everyone in order to fight back the council. Joan Collins, who is a regular in Club 55 is one of the main protestor as she believes that going on with the scheme would cause the Pampellone beach to lose its life.
She admits that most of the beaches in St Tropez are private and owned by exclusive and expensive companies, therefore taking away excess to the local public, but Pampellone which is organized by small and family run businesses provides excess to everyone. She urges the council to take Santa Monica as an example as it was once a vibrant beaches same like Pamnpellone full of small businesses, but after they were removed, the beach just died.
Instead of going on with such scheme, and if really the reason is to save the beach, the council is urged to come out with a plan to save the beach and give guidelines to the owners to do so.
Demolishing and moving establishments could even cause the loss of job for over 800 workers on Pampellone beach and disrupt lives. If truly the council wants to save the beach, they would figure out ways to overcome this instead of simply wanted to eradicate the establishments, and ironically they offer a longer contract for higher price to run an establishment on the beach.
Now that would just mean the same, or perhaps, even worse if the likes of hotels and mega structure companies were to take over.
Right now, everyone is still fighting the battle to save Pampellone.
The most important Hotel over Pampelonne Beach: La Reserve Ramatuelle.
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