French Beaches Hit By Lethal Algae

At this time of year, France normally see’s a large rise in tourists as more holidaymakers take advantage of the summer sun. With better weather than here in the UK, cheaper cost of living, and wonderful beaches, France is normally very tempting for holidaymakers looking for a cheap getaway.

However, this summer, rather than beaches full of ice cream eating tourists. The beaches have been layered with some algae that is deadly. Miles of normally surperb French coastline has had tonnes of the rotting algae washed up onto it’s sandy beaches. Normally the algae can be found within the sea and it’s not harmful, however, as it begins to wash up, it rots and releases deadly toxic fumes.

So far this summer, a 27 year old man has been taken ill from breathing some of the fumes. The 27 year old vet is currently taking legal action after he had to be dragged to safety from metre deep algae after his horse he was riding at the time collapsed and died from the toxic fumes.

A large number of the affected councils are having to spend tens of thousands of Euros on cleaning up the effected beaches. However, over 70 beaches have currently been reported to have the algae, making it a very tough cleanup job. No doubt the French economy will be affected as the visiting public are being warned away from the dangerous beaches.

Tourists visiting for day trips are not the only people to be affected by the deadly algae. People who own holiday homes out there may decide against visiting this year if they can’t visit the beaches. It won’t just be the French tourism that will lose money, the holiday home owners will also because they still end up paying for their French home insurance even though they never used the house this year.

Insurance for holiday homes is quite expensive so if you don’t end up using the house within the year, it does feel like a waste of money. Of course some holiday home owners will still decide to visit, despite the algae, just so they don’t waste money on items like insurance for second homes.

Many environmentalists blame pollution from intensive farming. Their argument is that the algae is rotting and being washed up because harmful materials from the farming get into the sea and effect the algae. We’ll have to watch out to see what affect this will have on the tourism in France.