French locals in Brittany have turned on Parisian holidaymakers in a wave of hostility that has seen vehicles vandalised, threatening graffiti daubed on walls and visitors subjected to abuse in the street.
Across several towns in France’s west coast, cars bearing Paris registration plates have been targeted with hostile messages scratched into their paintwork.
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Anti-tourist slogans have also appeared on public walls and road signs, with one piece of graffiti reading: “Refugees welcome, tourists go home!”
In Plobannalec-Lesconil, the mayor spoke out after vehicles registered in the Paris region were defaced with scratched-in slogans earlier this month.
“I wish to express my deep indignation and revulsion at the acts of vandalism committed against vehicles registered in the Paris region,” Loïc Le Fur wrote on Facebook.
“Beyond the material damage, it is above all the spirit behind these acts that shocks us deeply.”
Nearby in Plogoff, a sign declaring “Parisians get out!” was erected on a public motorway.
In Penmarc’h, tensions turned physical when a jogger was nearly struck by a cyclist who demanded to know whether she was local before telling her to “get lost”.
The same town has also seen walls sprayed with anti-tourist messages.
David Le Berre, the mayor of Penmarc’h, described the incidents as “shocking” and insisted that nobody should be made to justify their right to occupy public spaces.
“Pitting people against one another, intimidating them or questioning a person’s right to be on our streets: there is no place for that here,” he wrote on Facebook.
Yet Mr Le Berre conceded that the frustrations are not entirely unfounded.
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Each summer, Penmarc’h’s population surges from around 5,600 to roughly 17,000, placing significant pressure on local services.
Speaking to Le Parisien, he pointed to roads ill-equipped to handle the volume of traffic, a shortage of parking in popular areas and mounting housing pressures driven by the proliferation of second homes as longstanding sources of friction.
The backlash has intensified this summer as heatwaves in southern France have encouraged more domestic tourists to head north to Brittany’s cooler Atlantic coast.
The influx has caused some local populations to swell to three times their usual size during the peak season.
The surge in visitors to Brittany’s coastline reflects a broader shift in French domestic tourism patterns this summer.
Extreme heat and wildfires across the south have prompted many holidaymakers to abandon traditional Mediterranean destinations in favour of so-called “coolcations” along the Channel and Atlantic coasts.
Finistère alone recorded 7.4 million overnight stays between April and September last year, making it Brittany’s most popular department.
French tourists account for four-fifths of all overnight visits to the region, with nearly a third originating from the greater Paris Île-de-France area, according to Tourisme Bretagne figures from 2023.
“The disparities are considerable between Normandy and Nord-Pas-de-Calais, which are breaking records, and Occitanie or Nouvelle-Aquitaine, which are in sharp decline,” Didier Arino, director of the consultancy Protourisme, told Le Figaro.
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