The elected officials of the Basque coast had a meeting on Saturday evening with the Prefect of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Eric Spitz. An audio conference in which the eight mayors and the two deputies from the coast participated. It was a question of agreeing on a possible reopening of the beaches before June 2. Indeed, last Thursday, the Minister of the Interior Christophe Castaner explained that “the rule was indeed closure”, but that it will be possible to have access to these sites “at the request of mayors with the authorization of the prefect”.
At the end of this meeting, the eight mayors got together agree on the principle of opening access to beaches, and on the idea of ”dynamic beach”, therefore no sunbathing, but the possibility of walking there.
They still have to agree on all the details, for example on the issue of swimming, and present a common protocol, this will either be the opening of all the beaches or none, a requirement of the prefect to grant them a derogatory opening. Another condition is that their project agrees with the elected representatives of the Landes and those of the Gironde.
The mayors of the Basque coast will therefore meet this Monday morning in the premises of the Basque Country agglomeration. “The goal is to make a proposal to the prefect Tuesday or Wednesday, that he can examine it and give us feedback and may be, hopefully, a reopening of our beaches next weekend,” hopes Jean-François Irigoyen, mayor of Saint-Jean-de-Luz.
For his part, for the mayor of Anglet Claude Olive, “the only concern is to open all the same day at the same, now we have to work and as quickly as possible”.
Already in the water
And yet, if the deconfinement has not yet started, and if the beaches have not yet opened, some have not been able to resist and have braved the ban. Indeed, at 48 hours from the start of the deconfinement in the country, some onlookers took advantage of the mild weather at the start of the day to take a brief dip in the ocean at Anglet.
– Nathalie Bagdassarian
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