Saudi King Salman and a 1,000-entourage arrived on Saturday for holiday on the French Riviera, where over 100,000 residents have petitioned against the closure of the public beach outside his villa. The monarch's plane landed at Nice airport and he was driven away in a 10-vehicle motorcade, the local prefecture said. The new king and his inner circle's three-week visit at the family's seafront villa in Vallauris, where US actress Rita Hayworth celebrated her wedding to Prince Aly Khan of Pakistan in 1949, will be a boon for the local economy. But the closure of the public beach for privacy and security reasons has stirred up a local storm. A petition against the "privatization" of the Mirandole beach below the Saudi villa gathered more than 100,000 signatures in a week. The mayor of Vallauris also wrote to President François Hollande to protest against unauthorized work done by the Saudis at the property, where a slab of concrete was poured directly onto the sand to install an elevator. "We understand the security reasons and the nation's greater interest. But nobody can exonerate himself from the laws of the land," Mayor Michelle Salucki wrote. Hotels, restaurants and luxury shops along the Mediterranean coast, by contrast, welcome the visit. Several hundred members of the royal entourage will stay at hotels along the coast.

Be the first to comment