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St. Tropez locals declare war on “helicopter hell”

St. Tropez: Jean-Claude Molho and his wife, Martine, have no need for an alarm clock. Their wake-up call comes almost every day at about 7.30am, when, out of the hills of Font Mourier, a helicopter thunders over their whitewashed villa and makes sleep an impossibility.

It is not the peace and quiet they expected from their retirement, and they are not happy.

Along with thousands of other locals, they have begun to mobilise against the celebrities, businessmen and Formula One racing drivers who treat private helicopters as a taxi service and have turned the airspace above St. Tropez into one of the busiest in Europe.

“It’s hellish. They come over every five minutes,” said Mr. Molho, his lavish grey eyebrows arching as rotor blades droned into earshot over his patio. “It starts in April and goes on until the end of August. At night you have to close all the windows and shutters because it starts when you’re still in bed.”

Things have got so bad that Mr. Molho, president of the pressure group Halte Helico, handed in a petition this month to local authorities complaining that not enough was being done to protect long-term residents from the summertime pollution of a noisy minority. More than 4,000 people signed it, warning that if no action is taken by August 1, they would block the nearest official landing site, at Grimaud, and stop its well-heeled clientele from boarding their flights.

“We are mad with anger. We are not extremists; we just want them to keep to the rules. We can’t stop helicopters and we don’t want to stop them. But we want to stop cowboys from flying overhead,” said Mr. Molho .

Since Brigitte Bardot cavorted on its beaches in the 1950s, St. Tropez has drawn an ever-growing jet-set each summer, bringing with it glamour, luxury and lots of cash.

Though the town centre is overrun with tourists and the roads jammed in July and August, most locals recognise without the annual celebrity influx the town would struggle economically. And, while residents may complain about the noise, helicopter operators claim theirs is an essential service.

The locals joke that, if it were possible for the passengers to land directly in their swimming pools, they would.— © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008

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