Four restaurants on Villeneuve-Loubet's seafront have been ordered to dismantle their buildings within months, after the Alpes-Maritimes préfecture redrew the legal boundary between land and sea to account for coastal erosion, according to France 3 Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur.
In a letter sent to the restaurateurs in June, the préfet stated that continued occupation of the land, now reclassified as public maritime domain, constitutes an infraction and cannot support a registered business. Morad Bouzaiane, who runs the 716 Beach and Raani restaurants at the site, is among those affected. Jacques Teboul, who owns the land the restaurants sit on, called the move a disguised expropriation, noting the buildings were legally constructed decades ago on what was then clearly private property.
Villeneuve-Loubet mayor Lionnel Luca, whose own public car park near the beach is also affected, contested not the coastal science itself but the timeline imposed. "There's no urgency here," he said. "It's entirely legitimate to plan for what the coastline might look like in ten or fifteen years, but that doesn't mean everything needs to be torn down within three months as though this were an emergency." Studies suggest roughly 20 percent of France's coastline could be affected by similar retreat over coming decades, with the nearby SNCF rail line and a departmental road also potentially at risk in Villeneuve-Loubet.