Le Figaro Bordeaux
The Balmoral has just weighed anchor but the Sirena will take her place this weekend.
In 2023, the port of the Moon will welcome 40 cruise ships.
This is a return to the figures before the Covid-19 epidemic (43 ships in 2019) and good news for the tourism sector.
But in five years, awareness of the climate emergency has brought these ships under fire from critics.
The ecological municipality wants to be pragmatic, recalling that their impact on air quality is much less important than that of cars.
“
We don't have enough boats for this to deteriorate the air quality
”, summarizes Brigitte Bloch, municipal councilor responsible for tourism and the wine economy.
Despite the presence of the Chaban-Delmas bridge, the largest lift bridge in Europe, "
Bordeaux intra muros only welcomes 'small boats'
", indicates the elected official.
Only ships up to 250 meters long and carrying up to 900 passengers are allowed to moor along the quays, and only two ships can be present at the same time.
Tourism, on the other hand, is an essential sector for the Bordeaux economy.
Brigitte Bloch recalls that the city attracts four million people every year.
Only 42,000 of them are passengers on these imposing ships, barely 1%.
These travelers spend about the same (150 euros per day), but the other tourists spend 38% on hotels.
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"Down the Climate"
In 2019 - before the victory of the ecologists - a "
charter of good environmental practices for cruising
" had been adopted by the city of Bordeaux, the metropolis, the Gironde pilot station and the large maritime port of Bordeaux, in order in particular to reduce polluting emissions in the air, optimize access to the quays of Bordeaux center and limit the noise impact of these stopovers.
The town hall of Bordeaux specifies that it is today completing the electrification of the pontoons for small cruise ships (up to 170 passengers), in order to reduce nuisance.
However, this device is not possible for large liners.
In September 2022, despite the measures already in place, activists from the Extinction Rebellion movement woke up the passengers of a liner moored in Bordeaux with a fanfare, accusing them of "sinking the climate
"
.
Beyond the air pollution emitted, ocean liners can also pose an aesthetic problem, but this remains subjective.
"
Cruise ships are perceived as generating nuisance by 16% of residents of the Metropolis and 21% of residents of Bordeaux
", explains Brigitte Bloch.
A minority therefore, but these figures are twice as high as in 2018, in particular because of an increased awareness of the environmental problems caused by these buildings.
