This is a first for 30 years. The police officers seconded to the island of Porquerolles, off Hyères, in the Var, will leave with the last shuttle, the one which brings seasonal workers back to the mainland after their service. Then there will be no more police to guarantee the safety of the 4,500 people who spend the night there.
This decision worries Jean Ridolfi is the president of the Nautical Society of the island of Porquerolles: “The tourist arrives here, thinking that he is on a permissive island. So, from there, all excesses are allowed. The bars put on louder and louder music and it becomes open-air nightclubs”, he complains. This tourist hotspot – 12.54 km2 – known for its turquoise waters lined with beaches and pine trees has been able to see up to nearly 12,000 visitors daily.
“We will only have reinforcements from the national police until the last boats, that is to say midnight. But experience shows us that overflows and other abuses occur in the early morning”
John Ridolfiat franceinfo
Music, loud discussions, alcohol and sometimes drugs are often the cause of tension, even fights. The five firefighters on duty at night have indicated that they will no longer intervene. “We are here, we keep, we work. But it is true that the conditions at the human level, it remains difficult”entrusts one of them to franceinfo.
“Our skills are to help anyone, to assist people. But in no case to do repression or to be able to control a general fight or a brawl like that could happen.”
The island situation of Porquerolles complicates their task: “The response times for reinforcements are extended because we are an island. It is at least an hour or two. That time on a rescue, on an overflow, it is long”, regrets a fire soldier.
If there are no police on the island, according to Jean-Pierre Giran, the mayor of Hyères, the town on which Porquerolles depends, it is for lack of personnel. He called for reinforcements, to no avail. The workforce has been maintained at 100 police officers by the Interior Ministry, as the city of 58,000 inhabitants prepares to triple its population this summer.