A large blue tank focuses attention in a campsite in Argelès-sur-Mer, located about twenty kilometers south-east of Perpignan. It must recover washing water from the swimming pool. The commitment was made by the profession to be able to open swimming to tourists, despite the drought in the Pyrénées-Orientales. “The tank collects the water from the washing of the pool filters, which was thrown away until now […] It will be made available to firefighters,” explains Grégoire Beaucamp, maintenance officer at the Front de Mer, a campsite with just over 700 places a few meters from the beach.
The establishment has closed its jacuzzi, reduced the flow time of the showers and closed those at the edge of the pools, which will not be emptied at the end of the season. No more daily washing with plenty of water around swimming pools, now it’s a scrubber drier that does the job. “It used to consume about a thousand liters of water, now it’s more like forty liters,” says Grégoire Beaucamp. Between an artificial waterfall and a dolphin fountain, bamboos dry in the sun. “We put mulch to preserve soil moisture but we stopped watering,” says the maintenance worker.
Reduce water consumption by 30%
Like Le Front de Mer, all campsites in the Pyrénées-Orientales have undertaken, through the Departmental Federation of Outdoor Hotels, to take similar measures to reduce their water consumption by 30%. The prefecture has thus authorized them to fill their swimming pools, despite the water restrictions which prohibit it to individuals. The department is the most affected in France by drought, placed at the highest level of alert.
“This authorization discriminates against other audiences,” argues Virginie Delaunay, member of the Federation for Natural Spaces, a local association for the defense of the environment which denounces “mass tourism” on the coast, while the population d’Argelès-sur-Mer passes each summer from 10,000 to around 150,000 people.
Professionals denounce “PO bashing”
Discontent also affects Joëlle Faille, head of the Sea Front: “When I go to the shops, I don’t especially say that I work in a campsite, the people are horrible… Yet it is our customers who make them live. “Tourism is indeed” the first economy of the department “, according to Aude Vivès, president of the departmental agency of tourism.
Professionals denounce a “PO (Pyrénées-Orientales) bashing” unfavorable to tourism. The prefect of the Pyrénées-Orientales, Rodrigue Furcy, declared, at the beginning of June, to have noticed “an air hole in the reservations”. “But here we go again”, he added, while the president of the local federation of campsites Paul Bessoles underlined “a good resilience” of the customers. “We had a little break in early July, people were afraid of not having the pool, we received a lot of phone calls,” confirms Joëlle Faille.
In France, the second largest campsite park in the world
France has the largest campsite park in Europe and second in the world after the United States, with 7,500 campsites, 3,900 of which have a swimming pool area. “These 3,900 campsites with aquatic area represent four-fifths of national attendance. If we close the aquatic areas, there is a collapse in tourist numbers in these campsites and in surrounding tourist activity, ”assures Nicolas Dayot, president of the National Federation of Outdoor Hotels.
In Argelès, since his transat, Gérard Hary, a 66-year-old retiree, is “happy to have him”. “Madame doesn’t like swimming in the sea,” he laughs. The holidaymaker from Clermont-Ferrand has read the campsite posters encouraging people to save water and says to be careful: “Before, we took two or three showers a day. Now we only take one. »