Agnès Bouquet, newly installed at the Office de Tourisme, has laid out her summer agenda: an era of "commitment". Less plastic at events. Local producers front and centre. Short circuits. On paper it reads well. In practice? We wait.
She speaks of concrete moves: fewer plastic bottles scattered across summer parties, proper platform for peninsula producers, a real look at the patrimoine that isn't in every guidebook. The locals, though. They've heard promises before. What matters is what Saturday looks like on the port come July, when the rosé flows and the yachts pile in.
She's announcing rethought guided tours (finally we might talk about la Ponche without the postcard speech), partnerships with local vignerons, a charter for tourism operators. The thought is simple: that Saint-Tropez stops being just backdrop for a phone screen, starts being a village you actually move through.
It's ambitious. The season runs like a ship at full throttle; the wave builds itself, indifferent. But if Bouquet holds to what she says, the summer might smell of something other than sunscreen and chilled wine. Mistral, even. Common sense. Worth watching.
