There are numbers that speak much more than words. The president of the French Surfing Federation Jean-Luc Arrassus gave a perfect example by listing the edifying figures. "We lost overall 80% of the licenses compared to the same period last year. Concretely, we were more than 10,000 licensees at the end of April, there we are at 2000", laments the patron of French surfing on Europe 1. "April-May is the Easter holidays, the clubs begin to function well from March, and April-May, often at the end of May, the clubs are completely saturated by demand. This is absolutely not the case. "
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A derogatory measure allowed the resumption of activity
Fortunately for the French Surf Federation, the beaches are mostly accessible again. "Normally, the beaches only opened on June 2, there were no derogations envisaged at the start. What happened is that today, at the request of the government, we a derogatory possibility with a validation by the prefect to be able to open the beach, of course with respect for sanitary measures since we are still in a phase of fight against the Coronavirus ", recalls Jean-Luc Arrassus on Europe 1." We have a lot of beaches that have opened. These are rare cases, those that are still closed. On Sunday, on the coast of New Aquitaine, most of the beaches have reopened. In Finistère, it was even earlier in the week."
A reopening that required some measures, including the concept of dynamic beaches. A concept imported from Australia where, roughly speaking, we don't come for sunbathing, we use the beach for jogging, walking or going to the sea. "Beach culture in Australia is older, the big ones urban poles are located next to the sea, Australians live the beach every day ", recalls the boss of the French surfing federation. "We were a little inspired by this proposal. But, beware, we have always considered that for surfing, the beach is a place of passage, because our playground is the ocean, these are waves."
Now, a resumption of activity is expected this summer, to restart the machine. "The survival of surf clubs will depend on the period June-July, knowing that July, it becomes more complicated to train because of the wave conditions at that time," said Arrassus who would also like to see a test of the World Cup will take place in Hossegor this season. "The pro league has not decided, you would think that in the order of the calendar, the competitions which take place in the autumn phase, are rather in Europe. If it resumes at the end of August, we are in the window of the organization of the competition. We may have this good surprise, but today, nothing is sure. "