Benoît Payan, the Mayor of Marseille, has unveiled a proposal to curb overtourism and halt property owners from “making money off the people of Marseille.”
The mayor wants to force property owners who rent properties through platforms like Airbnb to purchase additional property and offer long-term leases instead. According to Payan, up to 75% of business property owners were not local. He also noted that the majority were renting our properties via short-term rental websites such as Airbnb.
.@BenoitPayan : "Je vais interdire aux propriétaires de résidences secondaires de les mettre en AirBnB" #RueDeLaRépublique@lamarsweb/@maritimamedias
— La Marseillaise (@lamarsweb) October 6, 2024
En vidéo sur https://t.co/YIuewMZAcH ou à lire sur https://t.co/NQ2GoAygtL pic.twitter.com/7KOkAdB6MO
This new plan tackles the overwhelming influx of visitors into the city. Short-term rentals contribute to rising rental prices and aggravate housing shortages for local residents.
Currently, individuals wanting to rent out a second home have to request authorisation from the municipality, which is a regulation that Payan implemented. “I’m going to oblige anyone who wants to [rent out a property on] Airbnb to buy an apartment and put it up for long-term rental,” he told Euronews. Payan explained that when he became mayor in 2020, the acceptance level of the above-mentioned requests was 82%. Now, this number has gone down to 4%.
The push for restrictions on short-term rentals in France is not new. Last year, Tourism Minister Olivia Gregoire revealed a plan to regulate visitors and address the problems associated with overtourism.
Wenn Touristen zu Schafen werden und an den Hausmauern zu lesen ist: “Fuck the tourists”. Braucht es neue Regeln? Kontingente? Lokales Management? Seen in #Marseille #overtourism pic.twitter.com/hUgp8fLTcr
— Stefanie Pauli (@StefaniePauli) July 6, 2019
Paris is among the cities that have implemented these policies. In 2020, officials welcomed a European Court of Justice ruling on a law that requires authorities to allow short-term property rental. Nowadays, renting out a second home on Airbnb is banned, and homeowners are limited on how many days per year they can rent their main home on Airbnb.
