The mayor of a beautiful French city beloved by Brits is seeking to ban a number of cruise ships from docking there, branding the vessels “floating hotels”.
Christian Estrosi, who has been mayor of Nice since 2017, has said he wants to ban most cruise ships from stopping off in Nice and Villefranche-sur-Mer by next summer, The Times reports.
“I don’t want these floating hotels putting down their anchors in Nice,” he said, as per the outlet.
“These cruises that pollute [and] that pour out their low-cost customers who do not consume anything and who leave their rubbish behind them, well I say these cruises don’t have a place here,” he added.
The mayor said he was planning to sign a bylaw preventing ships more than 190-metre long and with capacities in excess of 900 passengers from docking in the two locations from next summer, claiming the change would lead to a 70% drop in the number of cruise passengers arriving.
“At the moment, we have [ships] that are real floating towns with more than 5,000 passengers,” he said, adding: “These [ships] do not correspond in any way to the tourist model that we want to develop.”
Estrosi also decried planning restrictions he said had blocked construction along the French Riviera, saying: “We have prevented concrete from smothering Nice, we are not going to let overtourism smother it in turn.”
The move was welcomed by environmentalists, with the local head of the Ecologists party Juliette Chesnel-Le Roux calling it “an immense and historic victory”.
Ecologists claim the biggest cruise liners emit huge amounts of polluting sulphur dioxide, as much as 30,000 cars.
However, some local businesses have voiced concern at the plan.
A local shopkeeper told Nice Matin newspaper that the move could be disastrous for her business. “They want our death,” she claimed.
It’s thought Estrosi could face opposition from the national Government, which is opposed to cruise ship bans, as well as legal challenges if he attempts to implement it this year, with more than 100 cruise ships planning stops in Nice in 2025.
In 2024, 117 cruise ships dropped anchor in Nice and 107 in Villefranche-sur-Mer, as per the outlet.
The Cruise Lines Industry Association (CLIA), the world’s largest cruise industry trade association, has been approached for comment.
