TY - JOUR
AU - Salle, Grégory
AB - Abstract Despite its worldwide fame as a fashionable resort and dwelling place of high society, and unlike other elite haunts, the St Tropez peninsula has been overlooked by the social sciences. And yet, it is an emblematic place to observe not only elite self-segregation, but the rise of inequality as well. Based on an ongoing empirical research, this article aims to fill this gap by linking the study of elites to the analysis of social-spatial inequality. It challenges the dominant narrative that simply focuses on elite newcomers charmed by the natural beauty of the area by showing that it took considerable work to adapt local amenities to their tastes. Departing from the common image associated with St Tropez as a show-off place of conspicuous consumption, it also highlights a trend towards ‘conspicuous seclusion’. All in all, the case of St Tropez reveals how elites shape their environment through the physical and symbolical power they exert over space. 1. Introduction In their forceful work on French ‘high society’, sociologists Michel Pinçon and Monique Pinçon-Charlot have focused a great deal of attention to the issue of space, in a sense that is at once geographical and sociological, in the study of elites. In Grand Fortunes—unfortunately their only book translated in English so far—they provide many examples to support the argument that Power is power over space, and occupying a large space signifies as well the place one intends to occupy in social space. … The social power is thus also a power over space. This specific form of the power results in the capacity to control the residential environment, as much from the point of view of its social composition as of that of buildings and landscapes. (Pinçon and Pinçon-Charlot, 1998, pp. 159, 173) Although the point they make here may seem more or less obvious—just think of golf, for example—it is in fact insightful to the extent that, compared with research devoted to poverty, one can arguably affirm that the spatial issue has long been neglected when it comes to scrutinize the top of the class structure.1 This shortcoming is, in fact, quite surprising if one considers, for instance, that ‘One of the most flagrant privileges of the privileged class is to be able to transform most spaces into fiefs: by their symbolic capital, and by their material comfort too, they can invest in a place and become socially dominant there.’ (ibid., p. 70) One of the ‘fiefs’ the authors mention is the ‘parcs de Saint-Tropez’ (ibid., pp. 169ff), one the world’s most luxury private residential zone; a place that assuredly illustrates their argument. Apart from stimulating insights regarding this highly exclusive gated community, however, it so happens that more generally, the area of Saint-Tropez (hereafter St Tropez), despite its worldwide fame as a fashionable summer resort and dwelling place of high society, has been overlooked by scholarship. Emblematic of the Côte d’Azur or French Riviera—one of the most prized areas on the planet for wealthy elites2—this iconic place most certainly counts among the ‘high-status enclaves’ and the ‘right places to be and be seen’ (Beaverstock et al., 2004, p. 405). Yet it has never been the subject of an in-depth sociological study, unlike the Hamptons (Dolgon, 2006) or, from a different perspective, Ibiza (Rozenberg, 1990; Briggs, 2013). It is quite noteworthy that the name ‘St Tropez’ is not mentioned in the index of Geographies of the Super-Rich, edited by Iain Hay (2013), even though it appears in the chapter on St Barts (Cousin and Chauvin, 2013). The same goes for collective books on elites, on the upper classes and/or on social distinction (e.g. Abbink and Salverda, 2012), as well as on Mediterranean tourism as the world’s top tourist destination (Obrador Pons et al., 2009). This gap can be explained just as much by theoretical and methodological reasons as by empirical ones. Among them, the ‘misguided sense that this is a frivolous topic of passing interest and of little real significance’ (Hay and Muller, 2012, p. 83; Hay, 2013, p. 1) is, particularly, prominent in the case of St Tropez, so much does this (in)famous name immediately evoke the futility, indeed the indecency of conspicuous consumption and the flaunting of external signs of wealth. While there is indisputably some truth to this representation, it is nevertheless simplistic or partial, and stands in the way of making this stereotype-laden place into a proper subject of research. A material obstacle must also be highlighted, one that is significant at least from the standpoint of the ethnographic approach: the cost of living. The ability to live on-site over a long period and/or at regular intervals is an essential condition if one is to conduct an ethnographic study worthy of the name. As Monique Pinçon and Michel Pinçon-Charlot (2007, pp. 5–6) assert, ‘Precisely because of such obstacles, studying the privileged is a necessity. It is impossible to understand society without understanding its apex’. It so happens that we benefit from easy access to the St Tropez peninsula—a subset of the region of the Gulf bearing the same name3—enabling us to overcome the main obstacles we have just mentioned and to have conducted discontinuous fieldwork since 2014. Beyond the stereotypes, the St Tropez peninsula is in fact a relevant, even ideal place to empirically observe the socioeconomic trends highlighted by recent quantitative studies relating to the growth of inequality, particularly under the effect of the surge in very high incomes and assets (e.g. Godechot, 2012; Piketty, 2014[2013]; Houdré and Ponceau, 2014). It offers an opportunity to explore, by means of a mostly qualitative approach, the six lines of research pointed out by Iain Hay and Samantha Muller (2012, p. 76), particularly the first three: ‘enclaves of the super-rich and their role in sustaining inequality’, ‘the role of the super-rich in reshaping places’, and ‘problematic mobilities of the super-rich’. Besides, as we will specify later, it also offers a vantage point on these issues that is to some extent off-center. While elite research tends to focus on cities, as well as on work and education, such a case allows to throw light on elite recreational spaces; spaces that, in addition, present both local particularities and a global significance. Above all, it is a place that is symptomatic of the social-spatial concentration of wealthy elites in restricted, privileged areas. This is what a nearly 100-year-old native of Ramatuelle, a village which adjoins the town of St Tropez (see Figure 1a and b), was referring to ironically—finding himself surrounded by neighbors whom he encounters far less than their servants—when he used the phrase that serves as the title of this article: ‘Before long there will be nothing but billionaires!’.4 He was obviously alluding not to locals, but to outsiders, that is, seasonal residents. View largeDownload slide Figure 1 (a and b). (a) The Saint-Tropez peninsula within the Côte d’Azur. (b) Saint-Tropez and Ramatuelle within the Saint-Tropez peninsula. Sources: Demis (1a), the image is in the public domain (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cotedazur.png) and Arct (1b), the licence is CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Presqu_ile_Saint_Tropez_Map-fr.svg), Wikimedia Commons. View largeDownload slide Figure 1 (a and b). (a) The Saint-Tropez peninsula within the Côte d’Azur. (b) Saint-Tropez and Ramatuelle within the Saint-Tropez peninsula. Sources: Demis (1a), the image is in the public domain (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cotedazur.png) and Arct (1b), the licence is CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Presqu_ile_Saint_Tropez_Map-fr.svg), Wikimedia Commons. This mention of Ramatuelle is not fortuitous. Our fieldwork indeed put the focus on the peninsula’s eastern part, covering not only St Tropez but also its neighboring commune, which has half the population of St Tropez (2126 inhabitants vs. 4452 in 2012), but is three times wider (35.6 km2 vs. 11.2 km2). The initial reason for this choice was partly contingent, due to a special relationship with the municipality (see Box 1), yet it is above all justified by objective geographic and socioeconomic reasons. Two reasons in particular must be underlined. The first is that, along with St Tropez, it constitutes the wealthiest area on the peninsula. For instance, according to data from the Directorate-General of Public Finance within the French Ministry of Economy, the average net income tax per household in 2013 was higher in Ramatuelle (9690€) than in St Tropez (7612€), the national average being 1241€. With an average monthly taxable income per household of 3498€ in 2014, Ramatuelle even topped the list of the 153 communes of the Var department, well ahead of St Tropez (3059€), which ranks second. The same goes for the proportion of secondary residences—a good number of them villas—which in Ramatuelle reached 75.5% in 2012 compared with ‘only’ 61.5% in St Tropez (INSEE, 2015). Box 1. Fieldwork and methodology In the article quoted above, Iain Hay and Samantha Muller (2012, 85) says ‘assert that there is a moral obligation on the part of those of us with the resources to do so, to undertake detailed analysis of the worlds shaped by the super-rich’. Given that we had this site right under our eyes (and feet), in a sense we were already taking their exhortation seriously even before reading it, abiding by the idea that not conducting a study when we have the possibility of doing so would have nearly amounted to professional misconduct. What initially motivated and conditioned our decision to undertake research on elites on the St Tropez peninsula was our special relationship to the site. One of us grew up there, and is the daughter of the mayor of Ramatuelle (born there, first elected in 2001, and reelected three times since then); hence our ethnographic entry point, which first was this village. Although the study really began in 2014, it originated in a long-standing familiarity with the site. This atypical situation is of course not without problems, especially when it comes to convincing some of our contacts of our independence. But the advantages in terms of practical knowledge of the area and contacts far outweigh the disadvantages. Benefiting from the mayor’s social capital, we gained access to closed (private and/or too expensive) environments, to non-public data or documents, to discreet residential vacationers, etc. Besides, working in Pairs (Khan and Jerolmack, 2013) enables us to develop a dual perspective, between familiarity and unfamiliarity: although one of us is a ‘local girl’, familiar with the environment and the local population, and in her youth was a lay witness to ostentatious wealth, the other was a total stranger to it. This dual insider/outsider position—which we can play upon in the course of the study (by assuming the roles of the ‘native’ one and the ‘naive’ one)—proves to be heuristic, insofar as the comparison of our points of view helps the objectification process. That said, our ongoing research links ethnography’s usual methods—direct or participant observation, formal and informal interviews, photography, on-site data collection—with a sociohistorical approach, based on the detailed study of public and private archives. In this article (especially in the next section), we mainly build on State records (French National Archives, Pierrefitte-sur-Seine), archives from the Var department (Draguignan), the peninsula’s municipalities (Ramatuelle, St Tropez, to a lesser extent Gassin); and the collections of the French Institute of Architecture (Paris). A second reason is that the spatial setting of the area lends itself to widespread confusion over the boundary separating St Tropez from Ramatuelle. Not only seasonal visitors, but even some permanent dwellers are unfamiliar with the administrative line that separates the two adjoining communes. It often happens, particularly, in the media and advertisements, that various places (notably restaurants or celebrities’ villas) are incorrectly claimed to be in St Tropez, when they are actually located in Ramatuelle territory. This is particularly the case for the far-famed Pampelonne beach. Legally classified as a ‘remarkable natural space’, it is the region’s main tourist attraction and thus economic resource. Contrary to common belief, this 4.5-km sandy beach—with around thirty commercial establishments, including restaurants as well as businesses renting out deckchairs and parasols, often associated with St Tropez extravagance—actually belong to Ramatuelle. Hence the invaluable complementary yet adversarial interdependence with St Tropez, which in fact—contrary to a deep-seated myth—does not have this sort of seaside. This spatial confusion calls for a side-by-side look at the material economy and symbolic economy of the place, understood as a sociologically meaningful whole. As a result, this field has several heuristic features—all of them interrelated—when it comes to take a closer look at elite congregation/segregation. First, as suggested earlier, it directs our attention away from ‘global cities’ (Sassen, 2001) and more generally elite metropolitan areas—that are of course central to the identities and activities of wealthy elites (e.g. Forrest et al., 2017)—towards poorly urbanized and even rural areas, following the example of Woods (2013). The region of St Tropez is indeed considered France’s smallest ‘urban area’ (Debrand, 2004, p. 417), while Ramatuelle’s background is deeply rural. Second, and relatedly, we thus turn our attention away from workplaces and professional context towards the sites of elite seasonal residency and/or luxury tourism5 that have profoundly changed previously rural areas. As historians or sociologists have shown (e.g. Corbin, 1994; Wagner, 2007), although these spaces are mainly dedicated to leisure, they participate no less fully in elite socialization, playing an essential role in the accumulation of social capital and the (re)production of common cultural values. Third, the field is at the same time very local and very international. Beyond the singularity that the monographic approach makes it possible to highlight, this place can be considered a link in an international chain of elite pleasure grounds, as suggested by Bruno Cousin and Sébastien Chauvin (2012, p. 335) with regard to St Barts. Fourth, given that the top 1% is more internally differentiated than any other wealth group, one major benefit of this investigation site is that it offers at a limited scale the opportunity to work not just on the wealthiest so-called ‘one percent’, but also on the different categories that make up this fraction:6 not only the more or less famous ‘super-rich’, but also more anonymous people of privilege. This heterogeneity of the wealthy elites, from the national upper class to the global super-rich, even makes it a distinctive site of one-upmanship. Accordingly, it allows researchers to pay attention to elites from different fields, from big business to show business, including leading figures in finance as well as fashion or sport. For all these reasons, the region of St Tropez is definitely a suitable field for the study of elites, notably through the lens of space. In this regard, it must be emphasized that the St Tropez peninsula as a whole can hardly be characterized as an elite ‘enclave’ strictly speaking—a feature that distinguishes it from other exclusive seaside resorts, and makes it a particularly relevant place when connecting the study of elites with that of inequality (e.g. Khan, 2012). Unlike St Barts, where ‘a concern for the island’s regular patrons is to avoid co-presence with a mass of less wealthy ‘spectators’ personifying for them the spectre of social promiscuity associated with St Tropez’ (Cousin and Chauvin, 2013, p. 189), it is a peninsula, not an island. It is even less so a ‘virtual island’ like Dellis Cay (Sheller, 2009) or a private island gated community like Sentosa Cove (Pow, 2011), despite the efforts of the latter to emulate the French Riviera. It is certainly a place that is difficult to access;7 nonetheless, it is not an absolutely remote or enclosed spot. Hence, this region is exposed to mass tourism,8 which matters a great deal as regards the mechanisms of social closure among the elite, the upper-class dynamics of distinction, and more broadly the relations between social classes. Therefore, we not only subscribe to the idea that the study of elites must be linked to class analysis (e.g. Savage, 2015), but we also aim at including them in a sociology of domination that pays attention to the spatial inscription of social inequality. To this end, placing the recent developments in historical perspective, we begin with exploring how the St Tropez peninsula has become an elite seaside haunt. Taking a step back is indeed the best way to question the deep-rooted naturalistic account according to which this area, as being a ‘naturally beautiful’ area, was so predestined to allure ‘tasteful’ people. This account is indeed inherent to what Pierre Bourdieu (2010a, p. 119), reformulating an idea expressed by Max Weber, called a ‘sociodicy’, a theoretical (teleological to be specific) justification of privilege. To challenge this view, we highlight the generally overlooked fact that, over the course of a long-term process, the place had to be ‘appropriated’ to the elites for them to be likely to ‘appropriate’ it. 2. The making of ‘St Tropez’ as an elite seaside resort As suggested in the previous section, if we are to shed light on the making of an elite seaside resort, we can limit our field neither to the city of St Tropez as such, nor to the Gulf of St Tropez as a whole. Focusing on the former would be yielding to a common narrow and even misleading perception, whereas the latter makes certainly administrative and geographical sense, but no historical and sociological sense. We must take into account, in particular, a symbolic annexation: St Tropez, whose surface area is very limited, is more than just a town; it is a brand that was registered with the French National Institute of Industrial Property in 1992, a well-known international label whose name far overflows its administrative boundaries and invades the surrounding territory. We contend that the relevant unit of study, from the perspective of the sociology of elites, is the eastern half of the Tropezian peninsula, composed of St Tropez in the north and Ramatuelle in the central south. In so doing, we run against two common representations or narratives that are very widespread on the spot, and beyond. The first one is a stereotyped opposition that contrasts the town of St Tropez, synonymous with eccentricity, ostentation and even debauchery, with the village of Ramatuelle, associated with reserve, discretion and authenticity. Among many examples, a newspaper article summed up the relationship as ‘One seeks the shadows, the other the light’ (Lebas, 2006). Elites who frequent the peninsula also like to make their own use of this apparent contrast. The fact that these two bordering sites present distinct profiles gives rise to distinction strategies on the part of secondary residents. These were clearly expressed in a reversal mentioned by a couple we interviewed, whose villa is located on the boundary between the two adjacent communes; although they used to say they were going to St Tropez, back when it was regarded as a chic, trendy place, now they prefer to say they are going to Ramatuelle, a less trite, more distinctive place.9 This opposition has deep historical roots, as relations between the two municipalities have been marked by a symbolic distance that is as great as their spatial proximity. A historical rivalry has long pitted the city of St Tropez—whose maritime trading sustained a local bourgeoisie—against the rural town of Ramatuelle, home to poor peasant families. In Ramatuelle, one finds (as in other cases like Deauville or St Barts) a sharp contrast between impoverished origins—very clear in the deliberations of the municipal council, which confronted recurring problems of resource shortages, rural exodus and geographic isolation—and the ostentation that over the last decades grew out of the development of the luxury vacation. The case of St Tropez is altogether different. Contrary to Ramatuelle, elite vacationing started as early as the end of the 19th century, even if the phenomenon was numerically more modest than in other parts of the Côte d’Azur. It is well known, in particular, that at the turn of the 20th century the port town of St Tropez enjoyed a rising fame not only among artistic elites (Neo-Impressionist painters, writers, actors and directors), but also industrialists and politicians, who precisely appreciated its remoteness, escaping the relative crowdedness of other resorts on the French Riviera. Besides well-off visitors in search of picturesqueness, a local elite tradition dating back to modern times distinguishes St Tropez from Ramatuelle. Against the popular and well-entrenched view that it has always been a ‘charming little fishing port’, historians (Buti, 2010; Pavlidis, 2010) have shown that, from the late 17th century to the beginning of the 19th century, St Tropez was a prosperous harbor, even the third most important French port of the Mediterranean in the 18th century. It suffered, however, from space shortage, which hindered its economic and demographic development. Profits derived from export sales were invested by the Tropezian establishment in properties and vineyards, often acquired in the plain of Pampelonne, turning Ramatuelle into St Tropez’ countryside. Hence there were several political attempts during the 19th century, and even after the World War II, to annex this highly coveted cultivated land. The municipality of Ramatuelle always turned down what appeared as an unacceptable dispossession and, thereafter, jealously guarded its independence from its intrusive neighbor. Nowadays, this historical opposition is still relevant from the viewpoint of the sociology of elites: the two bordering communes certainly appear as one and only elite site, yet a two-sided one. This is not only symptomatic of the power of elites over space, characterized by their ability to disregard administrative divisions and to reshape symbolic boundaries; it also reveals how the peculiar layout of the premises is appropriate to, that is, lends itself to their distinction strategies. Second, although the St Tropez peninsula altogether may present itself today as a ‘naturally’ privileged area, such as misconception must be discarded. Once again, a little historical perspective can help debunk the notion of an almost ineluctable success due to the exceptional ‘wild beauty’ of an area predestined to become a holiday Mecca for the upper classes, particularly its wealthiest members. In a 1957 study, a renowned geographer warned against all teleological temptations by showing the uncertainty that surrounded the region’s economic and social development from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century (Juillard, 1957). A civil engineer expressed a commonly held view when he wrote in 1880 that: St Tropez, lost at the bottom of its Gulf and separated from our major communication networks by a mountain range, is doomed to a fatal ruin… It is almost certain that the Gulf of Grimaud [later known as the Gulf of St Tropez] will remain forgotten. (quoted in Buti, 2010, p. 36) Primarily because of the natural ramparts—the sea on one side, the Massif des Maures on the other—the area is indeed anything but a thoroughfare. At that time, both official documents and tourist guides emphasized the St Tropez peninsula’s insular or even semi-autarchic isolation, deploring its ‘backwardness’—a weakness that soon would be turned into the asset of ‘exoticism’. All in all, the place remained barely open to visitors, mainly because of its distance from the major transport lines. When Parisian developers attempted before the World War I to launch a real estate project turning the center of Pampelonne into an upmarket winter beach destination, they failed to attract investors in such an out-of-the-way spot. As a matter of fact, the pleasantness of a place is not enough to allure high-end patrons. Most studies on elite resorts (Pinçon, Pinçon-Charlot, 1998, pp. 186ff; Cousin and Chauvin, 2012, 2013) have shown that discoverers gave way to property developers and speculators, who turned the beauty of natural spaces into a source of profit. In our case, the development was instead undertaken by public authorities, first and foremost the state, which drove—and even legally constrained—the municipalities to adapt local amenities to visitors’ expectations. In the 1920s, one finds the first clear signs that the government was becoming aware that this region, in contrast to the rest of a Côte d’Azur eroded by invasive urbanization, represented a highly promotable natural resource in terms of tourism. Dating from 1922, a circular from the then Prefect of the Var demonstrates this new attention from the state, which was eager to develop tourism on the Var’s Côte d’Azur ‘in the national interest’, presenting the region as ‘one of our country’s most beautiful jewels of natural beauty’ and, for this reason, ‘one of the most significant sources of profit because of the influx of foreign money it attracts’. According to the Prefect, the authorities, therefore, had a duty to ‘look after’ and grow this ‘wealth’ by developing a plan to protect, develop and preserve landscapes and shores, so that the ‘nature’s picturesque quality’ would not be ‘compromised’ and would attract wealthy visitors searching for ‘places far removed from cities’. Arguing that this plan should benefit from a ‘broad view’, the Prefect called for the creation of an association of communes that he suggested could be advised by the National Tourism Bureau and by ‘large associations whose enlightened attention could be of great help’, namely industry associations and the Touring Club de France (on the latter see Bertho-Lavenir, 1999; Réau, 2011). In short, it was not only a matter of making the area suitable for an elite clientele that certainly valued such a wild stretch of coastline far away from the bustle of urban crowds, but also demanded a number of costly modern amenities, such as a roadway system adapted to their vehicles, water supply and sanitation in self-segregated neighborhoods, as well as parks and promenades. In the 1930s, planners laid out the design for a ‘Tropezian peninsula’ conceived as an up-to-date seaside resort with an international reputation. Marinas, hydroplane links with railway stations, even an airport at the back of the Pampelonne beach were mapped out, and all those planning proposals were submitted to public inquiry. In brief, despite project failures or renouncements, the St Tropez peninsula had been framed as an elite resort long before the 1950s. Even though these forgotten plans aroused some protest, especially among elite residents reluctant to make the peninsula more accessible, and then fell into oblivion due to the war, they paved the way for post-World War II economic development based on summer tourism. After the time of reconstruction (Pampelonne was one the main beaches of the Provence landings), it was not until the mid-1950s that the Pampelonne Bay became both popular—through the international success of Roger Vadim’s film And God Created Woman (1956)—and attractive for elites owing to the creation of beach restaurants and clubs (Bruno and Salle, 2017). By the late 1960s, there were around 20 establishments bearing exotic names (Tahiti Beach, Bora Bora, Pago Pago, etc.),10 with bamboo facades concealing increasingly solid structures. They were patronized by a socially selective clientele mainly from Western Europe, who were simulating a return to nature in an increasingly comfortable context. This way of taking possession of the beach was clashing with burgeoning mass tourism. Conflicts of use thus ensued between groups of working-class campers, naturists, or ‘sixty-eighters’ and the upper classes whose loyalty had been earned by beachside business owners who had been building increasingly high-end establishments. During the 1960s and 1970s, competing ‘modes of coastal production and consumption’ (Boissevain and Selwyn, 2004) came into open struggle. Some famous summer residents voiced their concerns about decadence and filth in the press. In 1973, writer Dominique Lapierre took up his pen to condemn the fact that the beach had become a ‘dumping ground’, while others were already nostalgically longing for the area’s ‘wild appearance’ or mounting crusades against nudism that was tainting the ‘moral cleanliness of the beach’. Appropriation struggles also took place directly on the foreshore, when police officers hunted down nudists (as depicted in the 1964 film The Troops of St. Tropez) or when clashes broke out between regular beachgoers and some beach managers denying the latters’ right to take over and enclose sandy parcels. As public authorities’ interventions consisted in prohibiting wild camping, but without building mass tourism facilities—despite a few urbanization projects concerned with ‘democratization’ of the place but given up for the sake of environmental preservation—they thus favored the rapid development of residential economy, that is, economy of secondary residences. As early as 1968, the number of secondary residences in the Gulf of St Tropez exceeded the number of primary ones. For lack of affordable accommodations, the working classes then moved to the west, targeting other Mediterranean holiday camps or recently built ‘tourist units’, contenting themselves with visiting St Tropez and Pampelonne without being able to stay there overnight. In the course of the 1980s and 1990s, the St Tropez peninsula has thus become the elite resort that it is today: a place where elites are at the center of the local economy (see Box 2), and also where conspicuous seclusion mixes with ostentatious consumption. In the next section, we highlight the former aspect, since the latter is what commonly characterizes St Tropez. Box 2. Elites, at the center of the local resort economy Following an economic crisis during the first half of the 1990s, the Var tourism industry, supported by local politicians, chose to adapt to the expectations of a more demanding clientele, that is to say a clientele that has more buying power but is also concerned with the quality of accommodation and of the environment in a context of increased competition between tourist areas (Lenzini, 1999). Since then, the economic development of the Gulf of St Tropez has been increasingly based on its ability to attract and retain well-to-do and wealthy elites. This is why luxury businesses are increasingly specializing in tourist products and services. The clientele, mostly French (a third of whom are from the Paris region) and European (German, British, Dutch, Italian, Swiss and Belgian), is over 52% made up of senior executives, independent professionals, company directors, scientific and intellectual professionals, artisans and shop owners (Var Tourisme, 2012). According to the head of the Gulf of St Tropez tourist bureau, who lamented the social selection that is wiping out the working and middle classes, this area is ‘the most expensive tourist destination in France’. Over the past 10 years, prices have risen by about 40%, an increase that was not hindered by the economic crisis that began in 2007–2008, in contrast to other French tourist regions, which further widened the gap with them.11 In addition to upmarket tourism, elite seasonal residency also characterizes the St Tropez peninsula. The two elements are partly linked at the turn of the millennium, ‘75% of the 135, 000 secondary residence owners (for 328, 000 primary residences) [had been] passing tourists’ over the course of the two previous decades, so that the Var recorded the region’s highest rate of net migration, with a nearly 9% increase in its population over 10 years (Lenzini, 1999). Taking a step back, the socio-spatial aggregation of elites seen in the eastern part of the peninsula can only be fully understood in reference to the social division of tourism labor that shapes the region, and to its social effects. Bluntly put, we could present the local division of labor as follows: in Ramatuelle are villas, beaches and the festival of theatre and variety patronized by business as well as show-business elites; in St Tropez are deluxe shopping, the port for docking yachts, and nightlife; and in communes to the west like Cogolin are the residences of workers forced to leave the peninsula because of the high cost of housing. The increase in real estate prices often forces people to sell property they inherit, because heirs do not have enough economic capital to pay the taxes, especially since the shift to the euro that, according to many interviewees, artificially multiplied prices by six. Local real estate agents agree to consider the eastern tip of the peninsula as simultaneously a ‘micro-market’, due to its peculiarity, and a ‘non-market’, due to its extravagance.12 3. From ostentatious consumption to conspicuous seclusion: how elites make themselves (in)visible One of the elements that make St Tropez a stomping ground for elites is that they can perform there a double attitude that is characteristic of their lifestyles: one that is intended for nonelite spectators, that is, social spectacle, and the other that is internal to the group, that is, social closure. In both cases, this is a matter of how elites control their visibility. On one hand, St Tropez is known as a show-off place of excess, a zone of conspicuous—and so wasteful, as Thorstein Veblen (1994 [1899]) remarked long ago—consumption, an aspect well depicted by Ashley Mears (2014) recent research on the ‘global VIP party circuit’, St Tropez being a main node therein. More generally, as her research also shows, it is a place where what counts is to be seen. What illustrates this best is the great number of society events that marks the social calendar, be they related to polo and horse riding (e.g. the ‘Longines Athina Onassis Horse Show’, created in Ramatuelle and then duplicated in Geneva), luxury cars (such as the ‘Paradis Porsche’ car show that has taken place in St Tropez since 1993) or yachting (as the Giraglia Rolex Cup or ‘Les Voiles de St Tropez’ sponsored by Edmond de Rothschild Group among other partners). The examples are legion, including fashion shows and highly exclusive charity galas.13 These events are first private and then public, in the sense that they are made to get media attention, including social networks. This can be considered the latest manifestation of ‘aristocratic parade’. As historian Alain Corbin (1994) has shown, ‘the lure of the sea’ was neither ahistorical nor socially neutral, but was an eminently elite process; and in this context of elite’s particular predilection for appeal of the shore, the dimension of parade, of social theater, is historically an integral part of the elite lifestyle. Resorts, in particular, are places of spectacle for the ruling classes to be admired, where they exhibit their elegance and way of life (ibid., pp. 265–266). Following in Corbin’ footsteps, Jean-Didier Urbain (2003[1994], p. 196) thus draws our attention to ‘the specular function of the beach site, like that of a theater, with its actors and its spectators’. Box 3. Le Club 55 or ‘assurance of being among one’s own kind’ Located in the heart of the Pampelonne Bay, ‘Le Club 55’ is frequently described in chic gossip columns, and more generally in the international press, as ‘the best-known beach club in the world’ (e.g. Leser, 2010), owing to numerous celebrity patrons of all fields. Among other exclusive beach establishments like Nikki Beach or Bagatelle, replicated in others cities to form an international chain of playgrounds for moneyed patrons, it distinguishes itself as a one-of-a-kind for two reasons. First, although the Club 55 is not the older establishment on the beach, every opportunity is taken to display its ‘legendary’ history. Created in 1955 (hence its name) by Bernard de Saint-Julle de Colmont, a renowned ethnologist of noble origin, who had just bought a waterfront property, the restaurant began fortuitously as a makeshift canteen for the camera crew shooting the famous movie And God Created Woman. The founders’ children like to recount the family business story in any occasion (including a book published in 1999 and a TV documentary in 2012), making it a founding myth that constructs the uniqueness of the place. The Club 55 also appears exceptional for a second reason: it has no real equivalent as regards its apparently unchanged, true-to-its-roots Provençal style. Unlike other fancy establishments, the place itself is anything but ritzy. Its unadorned setting in the shade of native tamarisks is meant to reflect ‘authenticity’ and ‘simplicity’: white driftwood furniture, commonplace crockery and ordinary chairs; no comfortable ‘VIP beds’, only blue mattresses lying on bare sand; no gourmet menu here, but rather ordinary—though expensive—food. Even regular customers who know the owner well can confess that: ‘You don’t really eat fine there. It’s average to be honest. In most of other restaurants around here, you can eat better than at the Club. Still, there is something here that …’14 This ‘something’ our interviewee was referring to is the informality that reigns here, often rhetorically explained by the founder’s motto: ‘The customer is not king here … because he is a friend’. Patrons are at ease here, among peers, feeling themselves ‘at home’ like in a membership club, yet without explicit social closure. Here supposedly prevails an open ‘everyone-is-welcome-here’ state of mind. What strikes the observer, however, is the great social homogeneity of the clientele, which has been produced partly by the expensive prices and partly by a kind of informal cooptation process. Such a place ‘cultivates privilege’, as Shamus Khan (2011) put it regarding elite schools. At first sight, one cannot but notice that patrons roughly adopt the same posture and look alike: predominantly white men wearing classy shirts and loafers, stylish women with high-class handbags and sunglasses, kids often supervised by nannies, etc. The high level of acquaintanceship, both between clients and between clients, owners and some staff members, is to be observed in the way many people shake their hands with each other, wave or nod in greeting from table to table, and how regularly long tables are laid. Nothing can better illustrate what Pinçon and Pinçon-Charlot pointed out as ‘ “the upper classes” taste for resort locations that do not always present truly exceptional characteristics. Only the one, truly essential characteristic—the assurance of being, if not absolutely, then at least sufficiently, among one’s own kind’ (Pinçon and Pinçon-Charlot, 1998, p. 103). This assurance lies in the conspicuous seclusion that has been favored by the owners, who took advantage of the hidden-from-view spot of the restaurant, situated in the backshore area on their property, to make room for both privacy and visibility. While luxury cars literally overflowed the private valet parking, triggering congestion and buzz about who may be inside, the seaside Club’s private pontoon is famously a ‘hot spot’ for paparazzi who takes pictures of celebrities arriving by speedboats from their yachts. Patrons may thus indulge in some controlled show-off before enjoying in-group socialization, just like—among many other examples—Bono and Bill Gates who arrived together in August 2016. Through the medium of local press and international tabloids, which emphasized the very casual outfit of the richest man in the world (who made a ‘major fashion faux pas’ according to The Daily Mail), the layman soon knew that they were there, so close yet so far. Now precisely, the example of the beach is also revelatory in highlighting a two-pronged phenomenon that might be called conspicuous seclusion. What we mean by this oxymoron is a form of social retrenchment that, by the same token, is meant to be noticed. This is the case in the numerous beach clubs/restaurants that occupy the Pampelonne beach, the most famous one being ‘Le Club 55’ (see Box 3), which is the key link—sociologically as well as geographically—between St Tropez and Ramatuelle. Given the high prices, these restaurants are socially exclusive; besides, they are visibly privately enclosed by wooden and/or fabric fences. The result is the self-segregation logic that can be seen in the high level of mutual acquaintanceship among regulars as well as between regular patrons and the staff. At the same time, people on a deckchair or eating at a table catch the eye of the passerby. Yachts also provide a paradigmatic example of conspicuous seclusion. On one hand, they are a glaring manifestation of ostentation. In this respect, the port of St Tropez is well-known to be a showcase of elite membership: when walking by the pier, you simply cannot miss the yachts and their guests who sunbath on deck or have a reception. On the other hand, they also represent the highest degree of retreat: even when they are just in front of you, you cannot access them, you cannot even really see how they look inside, and their captains can break away anytime by putting out to sea. To a lesser extent, luxurious chauffeur driven cars, shuttling between airports, hotels, beach restaurants and private parties also typify conspicuous seclusion: their tinted windows make them opaque, and at the same time such uniformly big black vehicles cannot but catch the eye, especially in the most ‘green’ landscapes. By extension, this idea may also apply to the most luxury villas (or hotels), occupied by elites that are extremely well-endowed with economic and social capital and are eminent figures in their field, but who are not celebrities and so might be longing for not only social closure but also discretion. On one hand, owners wittingly purchased a villa in a patently in-the-spotlight location, instead of settling in any other place where real discretion would easily be secured; on the other hand, they have leisure to retreat in their closed, camouflaged cottages.15 Luxury means being there, in the middle of a highly coveted area, without being seen if and when one does not want to. In this regard, a shift should be here underlined that was often expressed during interviews or informal conversations with residents or business owners on site. This shift is interesting as it goes against what St Tropez is most known for, namely ostentation. There are numerous press articles and even books that have tried to describe all of the excesses of the super-rich on the Côte d’Azur, particularly the influx of personalities from Russia and the Middle East (e.g. Aubry, 2010). Though this phenomenon is undoubtedly spectacular, it should not overshadow a much deeper and quieter process of recomposition of the elite on the territory under consideration. The peninsula is not the favorite place of elites outside Europe (around 20% of the foreign tourists come from the USA, Russia and Arab states on the Persian Gulf), who certainly visit these beaches but prefer to stay in the Monaco-Nice-Cannes area where there are more casinos. A tendency that should be stressed is a change in elite practices, with seasonal wealthy residents shunning outings to the town’s public places and nightspots in favor of private parties or receptions in villas, with catering, even chefs in the kitchen and servants in livery (not to mention private security). In a nutshell, they seek discretion rather than ostentation, reserve rather than publicity. This is the reason why it would be wrong to cling to stereotypes of St Tropez as a hang-out strictly reserved for flashy jet-setters; for them, especially among the youth, places like Ibiza tends to become more popular. All in all, elites control their visibility: they can be (really or supposedly) visible or invisible, present or absent just as they wish. What makes the St Tropez area, and particularly Ramatuelle, a locality prized by elites is that it offers both the possibility of display and the possibility of retreat. Again, this is consistent with a long-term trend described by historians toward the ability of the rich to entrench themselves behind closed doors, in places that are socially exclusive and that keep members of other social classes at a distance. This regime of visibility inherent to the elite also is a facet of the power over space. 4. Warding off the specter of decline: an elite resort in times of ‘crisis’ A specter is haunting St Tropez: the specter of decline. This is less a matter of visitor numbers than a loss of interest on the part of the ‘expected’ people; in the eyes of local shopkeepers and politicians, the problem is not so much the volume of tourist traffic, but rather the volume of the tourists’ and seasonal residents’ economic and social capital. It is difficult to pinpoint precisely the chronological genesis of this discourse. In our case, expressions of it are found beginning as early as the late 1960s, around the idea that the town seems to be shrouded in mystery: every year one can hear ‘St Tropez is finished’, and still, there are more and more people coming to visit it. This kind of discourse, we may add, is inherent to the prosperity of fashionable places. Thus, the example of St Tropez was incidentally referenced by Pierre Bourdieu in Distinction (1979) in a passage about the material and symbolic devaluation that results from an influx of the masses: The sense of good investment which dictates a withdrawal from outmoded, or simply devalued, objects, places or practices and a move into ever newer objects in an endless drive for novelty, … is guided by countless different indices and indications, from explicit warnings (‘St Tropez’—or the Buffet de la gare de Lyon, or anywhere else—‘has become impossible’) to the barely conscious institutions, which, like the awareness of popularization or overcrowding, insidiously arouse horror or disgust for objects and practices that have become common. (Bourdieu, 2010b [1979], p. 246) While some aspects of the book are now outworn (see Coulangeon and Duval, 2014), this extract is still valid today. The banalization to which this refers relates to mass tourism and social crowding—the antithesis of elite privilege. Accordingly, a significant influx of ‘rabble’ embodies the specter of decline. This is a recurrent theme in the discourse of St Tropez merchants who complain about gawkers who are numerous but consume little (in the vernacular, such stigmatized hoi polloi is pejoratively nicknamed ‘ice-cream suckers’), contenting themselves with a day spent watching the spectacle of yachts moored in the port and luxury cars driving through town. As a general rule, the discourse of decline can be considered as a veiled warning to the local elected representatives, calling their attention to the mobility, even volatility that characterizes the wealthy. The borderline case in this respect is that of the super-rich on luxury yachts—‘symbols and vessels’ of the wealthy ‘residential multi-territoriality’ (Cousin and Chauvin, 2013, p. 190)—who can weigh anchor and sail to a place more suited to their desire.16 It is one of the most glaring manifestations of the fact that ‘The social power is thus also power over space’ (Pinçon and Pinçon-Charlot, 1998, p. 173), that is, the ability to move somewhere else without constraints, ignoring the common boundaries. The fact is that, as suggested earlier, what can be observed in St Tropez mirrors the spectacular growth of the ‘superyacht industry’.17 In the high season, luxury yachts whose cost can reach hundreds of millions of euros compete in the Bay of St Tropez, well known as one of the main ports ‘where billionaires choose to dock’ (Thomas, 2013). Most of them head for the Pampelonne Bay, where inflatable boats provide a shuttle service between the beach and the open sea, ferrying yacht passengers from their ship to the beach restaurants—the wooden docks where passengers disembark being often targeted by fans and paparazzi in search of ‘stars’, ‘crowned heads’ or ‘high-profile billionaires’. This remarkable concentration of some of the largest yachts in the world is growing so rapidly that in 2013, in order to get a sense of this massive phenomenon, the Gulf of St Tropez Marine Observatory implemented AIS yacht tracking with a view to mapping the collected data. Let us now turn our attention away from the numerically tiny group called the ‘super-rich’—the only ones who can afford to buy or rent these luxury yachts—and take a larger view. Although talk of decline and reference to a bygone golden age have not at all disappeared, particularly among those who work in the tourism industry, numerous indications are converging to indicate instead a move upmarket in the residential and tourist economy of a place prized by increasingly wealthy elites. This escalation in the cost of living, which is turning the St Tropez peninsula into an increasingly opulent locale, is just as apparent in data from observation and interviews as it is in statistical data. In fact, direct observation shows anything but a situation of decline. On the contrary, the area still exudes its prosperity, which is intact if not increasing. This situation, incidentally, played an important role in triggering our field study; even though the phenomenon is hardly surprising, the contrast between, on the one hand, the ubiquitous theme of ‘crisis’18 and austerity policies and, on the other hand, the increase in luxury visible on the spot is all the same striking. The increasing affirmation of luxury is observable in the streets of St Tropez, where major-brand boutiques, namely Vuitton, Chanel, Hermès and Dior, have been opening in traditional houses since 2010. Place de la Garonne got nicknamed the ‘Place Vendôme of St Tropez’ because of the presence of several luxury jewelers. A journalist of The Telegraph also nicknamed St Tropez ‘LVMH city’ (Samuel, 2013)—he was in fact quoting a short-lived graffiti covering a town sign—referring to the now inevitable presence (boutiques, restaurants, hotel located in the famous Place des Lices) of the world’s largest luxury group owned by the French billionaire Bernard Arnault, one of the world’s wealthiest individuals, who also owns a huge property in the aforementioned luxury private residence of ‘Les Parcs de St Tropez’. Aside from prices at specially trendy places like St Tropez’s most famous brasserie (Sénéquier), which are well above average—a pint of ordinary beer costs 19€, and menus offer almost nothing but distinctive products including caviar—generally all prices, including for basic consumables, are being driven up. For instance, the supermarket at the entrance to the peninsula is said to be the most expensive franchise store in France. Local products all measure up to the top of the range. To take wine growing as an example, wine estates have been renovated and retitled as ‘châteaux’. They are equipped with new cellars endowed with the latest wine-making technology, as well as wine-tasting room and shops in which they sell wines presented as upmarket, bearing high price tags and awards (medals from national and international competitions, selections and ratings from prestigious guides). In recent years, several estates have started converting to organic farming, developing wine tourism activities and reintroducing olive growing in order to produce upmarket olive oil. Quantitatively, several indicators also testify to blossoming prosperity in the period of supposed ‘crisis’. The drop in summer tourist traffic affecting the Gulf of St Tropez since the 1990s is not observed in Ramatuelle or St Tropez, based on a long-term indicator as the number of tons of household waste.19 Furthermore, it obscures the change of clientele mentioned above. The number of secondary residences in Ramatuelle and St Tropez, having risen by 15% and 13%, respectively, between 1990 and 1999, subsequently multiplied by 2.3 and 1.4 between 1999 and 2011. Due to a lack of new undeveloped land, the number can no longer increase, and this only exacerbates surging property prices and property speculation. In addition to the residential economy, the Gulf of St Tropez has a large number of hotels, representing 25% of all hotels in the Var. Upmarket hotels are well represented, making up 40% of rooms, compared with 21% department-wide.20 In this regard, the peninsula’s situation reveals the elite dynamic. Between 2008 and 2012, in Ramatuelle and St Tropez, though the number of hotels remained quite stable, that of 4- and 5-star establishments rose quite sharply, while that of lower-rated hotels stagnated and often fell (see Table 1). In 2012, three of the eight luxury hotels outside Paris to receive the new ‘Palace’ distinction—which, since 2011, has been awarded by the Tourism Development Agency of France to exceptional establishments—were located in Ramatuelle and St Tropez. The dynamic of rising luxury has continued since then, as shown by the fact that in 2015,21 according to INSEE, neither of the two communes had any hotel or room rated less than 3 stars. Table 1 Number and capacity of hotels by star rating in St Tropez and Ramatuelle (2008–2012) St Tropez     2008   2012   Hotels  Rooms  Hotels  Rooms  All star ratings  26  806  25  806   0 stars  0  0  0  0   1 stars  0  0  0  0   2 stars  4  67  4  67   3 stars  12  291  9  206   4 and 5 stars  10  448  12  533    Ramatuelle    2008  2012  Hotels  Rooms  Hotels  Rooms    All star rating  15  383  14  387   0 stars  0  0  0  0   1 stars  1  6  1  6   2 stars  3  28  1  5   3 stars  9  266  8  214   4 and 5 stars  2  83  4  162  St Tropez     2008   2012   Hotels  Rooms  Hotels  Rooms  All star ratings  26  806  25  806   0 stars  0  0  0  0   1 stars  0  0  0  0   2 stars  4  67  4  67   3 stars  12  291  9  206   4 and 5 stars  10  448  12  533    Ramatuelle    2008  2012  Hotels  Rooms  Hotels  Rooms    All star rating  15  383  14  387   0 stars  0  0  0  0   1 stars  1  6  1  6   2 stars  3  28  1  5   3 stars  9  266  8  214   4 and 5 stars  2  83  4  162  Source: INSEE (http://www.insee.fr). Table 1 Number and capacity of hotels by star rating in St Tropez and Ramatuelle (2008–2012) St Tropez     2008   2012   Hotels  Rooms  Hotels  Rooms  All star ratings  26  806  25  806   0 stars  0  0  0  0   1 stars  0  0  0  0   2 stars  4  67  4  67   3 stars  12  291  9  206   4 and 5 stars  10  448  12  533    Ramatuelle    2008  2012  Hotels  Rooms  Hotels  Rooms    All star rating  15  383  14  387   0 stars  0  0  0  0   1 stars  1  6  1  6   2 stars  3  28  1  5   3 stars  9  266  8  214   4 and 5 stars  2  83  4  162  St Tropez     2008   2012   Hotels  Rooms  Hotels  Rooms  All star ratings  26  806  25  806   0 stars  0  0  0  0   1 stars  0  0  0  0   2 stars  4  67  4  67   3 stars  12  291  9  206   4 and 5 stars  10  448  12  533    Ramatuelle    2008  2012  Hotels  Rooms  Hotels  Rooms    All star rating  15  383  14  387   0 stars  0  0  0  0   1 stars  1  6  1  6   2 stars  3  28  1  5   3 stars  9  266  8  214   4 and 5 stars  2  83  4  162  Source: INSEE (http://www.insee.fr). Last but not least, the turnover of businesses located on Pampelonne beach remains at a high level. Whereas around the year 2000, turnover was estimated to be around 30 million euros, in 2014 estimates ranged from 40 to 45 million euros, the figure of 42 million being the most frequently cited.22 According to the representatives of the managers of Pampelonne beach clubs, the turnover in 2014 even amounted to 52 million euros, increasing by 20% between 2008 and 2012 and by 15% between 2012 and 2014 (AEPP, 2016, p. 10). This unrelenting increase is a solid indicator of visits to the area by the well-to-do upper classes. Although they are not necessarily as numerous as before, they are in any case spending more. In this regard, this beach makes for an excellent opulence observatory. The swankiest establishments post very high prices,23 driving up prices throughout the beach as a whole, including at those very few stalls directed at the general public. Private establishments only occupy 30% of the Pampelonne beachfront. Nevertheless, even across the remaining 70% that is free beach, one observes a certain loss of custom from the middle class and a fortiori working class. This loss of custom is primarily explained by material barriers. In addition to the cost of parking, which deters those on a budget especially if they just intend to drop by, living nearby has a prohibitive cost. Apart from the villas with their expensive rent (several 1000€ per week, if not per night), there are of course long-standing campgrounds, created in the 1960s, but those centrally located on the beachfront have become villages of upmarket self-contained bungalows rented for hundreds of euros per night in the high season. For those who cannot afford to live nearby, access to Pampelonne is hindered by heavy road traffic in the summer. The beach is made all the more inaccessible by the fact that it does not have the kind of seafront boulevard or corniche road found at many other beaches, but is instead served by six local perpendicular roads and lanes leading to the one regional road linking Ramatuelle to St Tropez, which is about 1 km away from the beach and overcrowded in the summer. These material barriers are matched by symbolic barriers that contribute to this exclusiveness. For those on a low budget, the very fact of being surrounded by expensive private establishments—partitioned off by privacy screens that separate them from the rest of the beach—makes for an unpleasant experience. It renders the beach very socially selective even though in principle at least 70% of the beach is free. Beach clubs themselves target different groups within the upper classes: some offer a setting that is sober and family-friendly yet ‘chic’, whereas others give themselves a festive, flashy image especially attractive to the young jet set. The choice of establishment, therefore, marks distinctions not only between the upper classes and upper middle classes who can only occasionally indulge in a day on a ‘private beach’, but also within the elite itself. The stated diversity of Pampelonne causes it to be perceived as a place that offers a wide range of options, and even seems to symbolize openness, while enabling beach clubs’ patrons to practice social closure and ‘do privilege’ (Khan and Jerolmack, 2013). The increase in luxury makes some interviewees, especially secondary residents since the 1980s or 1990s, say that the St Tropez peninsula has become too expensive, ‘even for those who have the means’. In the views they express, talk of decline is mixed up with that of a fall in status in the face of forms of one-upmanship. The influx of super-rich newcomers has excessively ‘raised the stakes’, making the established upper class experiences a relative social demotion, as suggested by some interviewees.24 Born in Italy and residing in Switzerland, F. got the idea to buy a chateau in France in the late 1980s. According to him, at that time some chateaux were ‘not at all expensive’. He made an appointment to visit one on the coast of the Pyrenees. He stopped in St Tropez on his way from Lugano because ‘everyone was talking about it’. This entrepreneur investing in small and medium-sized international businesses (he then did a lot of work for the United States and Canada) reserved a room in a palace in St Tropez. It disappointed him: even though the guide said it was exceptional, he found the hotel average, and particularly noisy. Therefore, he very early decided to visit the surrounding area. E. did not yet have a sense of the boundary between St Tropez and Ramatuelle, but it did not matter since he found the place magnificent… even though he was surprised to be told that there were no beaches in St Tropez! He bought a villa directly on the beach in the much-coveted Pampelonne estate, close to the Club 55. He now lives in Singapore, but he still owned this property—where he regularly summers along with family and friends—at the time of the interview. During the interview, he sometimes refers to ‘the real rich’ to designate the wealthiest visitors, especially those traveling by yachts. Born in the early 1930s, the Frenchman G. first set foot in the Var during the war. The place made an impression on him as a child, and he promised himself to return. He did not really get to know the region, more precisely the commune of Sainte-Maxime, until 1956, as a student. He returned on holiday the following year. Then he did not return until 1968, and he remembers the deserted Pampelonne beach. Living in Paris, he came back with friends in 1982–1983, renting a house in St Tropez. He was not charmed by the place, because he found it too crowded. However, he returned on a weekend in 1985 in a friends’ house, and it was then that he discovered Ramatuelle. D. was then the managing director of a major state-owned French company. Charmed, he decided to buy land and build a family home that was completed in 1988. Since he is retired, it is definitely his second home. This is where the interview took place. According to him, the prices were ‘very affordable’ back then. They have increased so much today that he would not be able to buy a similar house, with a direct stunning view onto the Pampelonne Bay. Even representatives of the wealthiest members of the economic elite may express that view. In an interview, H—a major French businessman, head of one of the largest family fortunes in Europe and owner of an ideally located seaside villa that is invisible from the sea, hidden by the forest—explained that recently prices have ‘increased in unprecedented proportions’. His less wealthy friends have had to move to the Atlantic Ocean.25 As previously suggested, over the past 15 years there has been a partial, gradual and less visible renewal of the wealthiest residents. To the mostly French or francophone millionaires of the big-boss elite are added billionaires of the European industrial elite from every sector (pharmaceuticals, diamonds, mines, biotechnology, ICT or luxury), primarily from Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy and Switzerland. They are aged between 50 and 70 and buy sumptuous villas with sea views, showing no preference for Ramatuelle or St Tropez, in order to have a secondary residence where they can gather family and friends in the summer on a site that is protected, in both senses of the word (ecology and security), and enjoy easy access to leisure activities and a social network concentrated within 50 km2. According to one of Forbes’s 300 richest people, who only recently bought a property on the peninsula after visiting regularly for decades without wanting to move there, not only is the area not collapsing, but ‘it’s only the beginning’ of a period of prosperity. To borrow the words of one of our interviewees, an architect working with this new clientele, ‘those people haven’t experienced the crisis. They’re beyond the crisis’,26 and by their very presence, they ward off the specter of decline. 5. Conclusion We have argued as a starting point that the St Tropez peninsula provides an emblematic case study for linking the study of elites to the dynamics of socio-spatial inequality. In conclusion, let us emphasize three points that join in refining our understanding of what elites do to their environment. While it is true that such a field allows addressing the issue of social distance mingled with spatial proximity, as the lifestyle of the elites is largely cut off from the surrounding territory as well as from the permanent local population (apart from the people that directly benefit from it), the issue at hand is not a matter of ‘coexistence’—how social worlds closely coexist geographically without ever rubbing shoulders, so great is the socioeconomic distance between them—but rather how their presence reshapes a territory in which other inhabitants live and work. Indeed, elite territorial appropriation should be understood in two senses: not only possession through the acquisition of private properties, but also the development of spaces and activities that shape the area’s socioeconomic organization to elite taste and desire. First, we have challenged the popular dominant narrative that accounts for the long-standing success of the region among elites by only focusing on outsiders, telling the story of a series of waves of eminent newcomers spontaneously allured by the natural beauty of the area. Contrary to this narrative, which has become common sense not only in the local folk wisdom but also in most of the media discourse, it must be stressed that it took a considerable—if unperceived—work to attract elites, in terms of development projects, urban planning, local amenities and so on. Thus, the environmental preservation of the area, which is now what distinguishes it from heavily built-up parts of the French Riviera, thereby providing a privileged layout for elite vacationing, is the result of a constant concern from political authorities, be they local or national. They contributed to make the place both accessible (in terms of access and transports) and comfortably enjoyable (in terms of residence and recreation). To put it bluntly, elites did not only settle because they impulsively wanted to, but also because the place was laid out for them to do so. Since at least the 1920s, this peninsula has first and foremost been framed as an elite resort, whereas mass tourism was being pushed back to the Gulf’s mainland. Thus, all attempts to convert the region to mass tourism or to a highly urbanized and then densely populated area by means of several large-scale development plans—most of them forgotten or ignored even by local officials—have ultimately failed. Therefore, whatever the good intentions of local actors whose prime intent is to preserve the natural environment against the arguably devastating effects of mass tourism, the fact is that in a general context of coastal erosion and overpopulation, protecting the shore in the name of ecological and aesthetic values, without due consideration for low-cost accommodation, can only conduce to social closure and self-segregation. Second, departing from the common images associated with St Tropez, that of a show-off place of excess, a zone of wasteful ostentation, to say nothing of an ‘evil paradise’ (Davis and Monk, 2007; see also Urry, 2010, pp. 201–207), we have pointed up a less visible trend in elite practices, eschewing public places to rather withdraw into private villas. Furthermore, we have termed ‘conspicuous seclusion’ a form of social retrenchment that is nevertheless intended to come into sight, indirectly through media coverage if not directly. Yachts and beach clubs, in particular, are scenes that illustrate this ambivalence inherent to the elites’ lifestyles, in a staging oscillating between parade and withdrawal. On the whole, elites can thus control their visibility, being distinctively present or absent whenever they wish. This point is, besides, closely tied to the previous one: they choose to be in this particular area precisely because they can here keep up their social capital while enjoying a well-preserved site that is also adapted for their social tastes and preferences, and so, we might add, at the expense of most local permanent inhabitants. Third, and relatedly, our case study is revelatory in demonstrating how elites reshape their environment through the physical and symbolic power they exert over space. Studying the ‘heights’ of society, and especially the way elites carve out spaces adapted to their preferences and practices, necessarily means studying class relations in general, thereby addressing the social-spatial dynamics of inequality. As Sylvie Tissot (2014, p. 8) recently pointed out, both public spaces and privates spaces are always more or less heterogeneous. Despite attempts to privatize public spaces, or the material barriers presented by exclusive flat blocks, ‘others’ circulate in them, if only the various servants maintaining them. Although they have been made socially invisible, the working classes are not absent from the St Tropez peninsula. In particular, they inconspicuously supply domestic labor needed by an economy increasingly directed at wealthy elites. The paradigmatic example of this is the staff usually accompanying seasonal residents on their trips, staying in neighboring houses rented out for this purpose, or in basements built to accommodate them (according to several interviewees, they are usually Filipino migrant workers). On Pampelonne beach clubs, they are certainly present, but have been made physically invisible as kitchen hands, or are placed in subordinate positions on the beach as mobile servers, models or masseurs. Moreover, they live far from their place of work. Whether they are casual seasonal workers, or local families that either do not own property or have been forced by high tax rates to sell property they have inherited, these workers find themselves relegated to the periphery of both the peninsula and the Gulf. Residential exclusion (owing to the spectacular increase of land and property), therefore, intersects economic dependence, many local people being directly or indirectly employed for the service of the leisure class. This social eviction is at once material and symbolic; it refers not only to the rising value of real estate and the general inflation of prices, but also to the area’s strategic adaptation to the tastes of the upper classes. This process of elite aggregation, which ousts permanent residents from their homes and places of work, causes the local population, including some of those who live from tourism, to fear that the peninsula will become ‘scenery for billionaires’ and an ‘enclave for the super-rich’. But the process is also made possible because of the upward social mobility of a fraction of the local population that has benefited from the resort economy, in some cases through successful professional reconversions in architecture, gastronomy or private security. In this respect—and in this respect only—following Cousin and Chauvin (2013, p. 197), we might speak of a ‘multi-class co-production of elite seaside spaces’. Footnotes 1 Breaking with this ‘largely aspatial perspective’ is, for instance, the starting point of Niall Cunningham and Mike Savage’s study of elite practices in the UK (2015, pp. 321–323). 2 The Côte d’Azur is ranked first (above Costa Smeralda, St Barts, Aspen and Monaco) in the ‘Prime Enclave Index’ established by the Candy GPS Report (2013, p. 3) dedicated to ‘Luxury residential enclaves in the Global Prime Sector’. 3 Whereas the Gulf of St Tropez, administratively speaking, is made up of twelve municipalities (the Canton of St Tropez comprising seven of them), the St Tropez peninsula—a geographical entity, not an administrative one—only includes four communes: St Tropez, Ramatuelle, Gassin and La Croix-Valmer. The first two, on which we here focus, lie at the heart of the peninsula, while the last two are connected to the inland towns of the Gulf. On Gassin see Lindknud (1998); on La Croix-Valmer see Chabert (2016). 4 Interview with A., a former farmer-winegrower (Ramatuelle, personal interview, July 2014). 5 On the distinction between ‘tourist’ and ‘residential vacationer’ or ‘seasonal resident’, see Urbain, 2003. 6 This is all the more true if a larger part of the population is sociologically characterized as belonging to this social group, as it is the case with the analysis of the Great British Class Survey, in which the top class, termed ‘elite’, comprises around 6% of the UK population (Savage et al., 2015). 7 Even France for Dummies mentions that ‘St-Tropez is difficult to get to without a car (no trains stop there) or even with a car’ (Porter et al., 2007, p. 436). 8 In the late 1990s, one could already find estimates claiming that in the department of Var ‘80% of the population lives on and for tourism’ (Lenzini, 1999). This orientation has continued until now. In 2010–2011, the Var was visited by 9 million tourists who spent 3.4 billion euros, a quarter of which went to the Gulf of St Tropez region, which occupies only 7.2% of the land area (Var Tourisme, 2012). The coastal areas of the department are by far the main tourist attraction: 78% of the Var’s tourism added value, 75% of tourism jobs and 74% of tourist room nights were recorded in coastal communes. Among these, Ramatuelle ranks first in many categories, including tourism added value (47% compared with 35% for St Tropez) or tourism jobs (49% compared with 39% in St Tropez) (Var Tourisme, 2015). 9 Interview with B., art producer/agent living in Switzerland (Ramatuelle, personal interview, August 2014). 10 The same inspiration goes for ‘Clubs Méditerranée’: see Réau (2007). It is worth mentioning here that, in the 1960s–1970s, two projects of ‘Club Med’ in Ramatuelle, one of which directly on the Pampelonne Beach, ultimately failed due to the opposition of the municipality. 11 Interview with C., head of the Gulf of St Tropez tourist bureau (Gassin, personal interview, August 2015). 12 Interviews with D. and E., real estate agents (respectively, St Tropez and Ramatuelle, personal interview, January and September 2016). 13 To take just one example: in July 2015 a fundraising gala was organized in St Tropez by the Leonardo di Caprio Foundation that raised over $40 millions for ‘nature protection’, with guests ranging from crowned heads to top models to art dealers. 14 Interview with F., executive director of a company (Ramatuelle, personal interview, August 2014). 15 In the region are to be found villas of some of France’s top bosses (Bernard Arnault, Vincent Bolloré, Gérard Mulliez, François Pinault, Christian Courtin-Clarins, etc.), foreign billionaire tycoons (Albert Frère, Lakshmi Mittal, Dmitri Rybolovlev, etc.) or members of the European aristocracy (Princess Napoléon, the Grand-Ducale family of Luxembourg, etc.). 16 For a discussion on the ‘politics of super-rich mobility’, see Spence (2014). 17 The number of ‘superyachts’ has never stopped increasing, going from 1081 in 1985 to 2257 in 2000 and 4209 in 2010 (SuperyachtIntelligence, Economic Analysis of the Superyacht Industry, February 2012, p. 3, fig. 2). Besides the vessels have also been getting longer, and since length is a classification criterion, it is a mark of distinction. 18 It goes without saying that the term is highly problematic, given that ‘“crisis” is guaranteed to hold its own in the contest for the most poorly constructed “concepts”’ (Lordon, 2013, p. 108), if only because of its durable, if not chronic nature. We therefore do not use it here as a descriptive concept, even less as an analytical one, but rather as a discursive framework that has real social effects. The fact is that over the past ten years the ‘touristic split’—as it is officially called in France, referring to social inequalities surrounding access to vacation—has worsened. Official data shows that almost half of French people do not go on vacation, while the vast majority of holidays are concentrated within a quarter of the population (Buisson and Roure, 2013 for official data; also see Cousin and Réau, 2016). 19 The Community of Municipalities [Communauté de communes] of the Gulf of St Tropez (Tourism Service) establishes statistics on the monthly volume of tourist visits based on the number of tons of household waste. Between 1990 and 2014, this decreased by 24.2% for the month of July and 16.2% for the month of August in the whole Gulf. Ramatuelle shows the opposite trend during the same period: visits increased by 31.4% in the month of July and 39.3% in the month of August, and has exploded in the winter (increasing eightfold in January). To a lesser extent, the same applies to St Tropez visits increased by 4.9% in the month of July and 10.2% in the month of August. 20 Source: data from the Observatoire de l’économie touristique du Golfe de St Tropez. 21 Owing to changes in the INSEE classification, it is unfortunately not possible to rigorously compare the figures from 2015 with those from 2012. Nine out of twenty-one hotels in Ramatuelle and 10 out of 32 hotels in St Tropez are now classified as ‘uncategorized’ [non classés]. Based on fieldwork and brochures, there is evidence that they are upmarket hotels, for which the absence of ‘stars’ only plays as a sign of distinction. 22 These figures were taken from a press corpus dedicated to Pampelonne beach, assembled in parallel with the field study. It currently includes just over 320 articles (from the national and regional press, news magazines, etc.), spanning the period of 1989–2016. 23 There, a ‘VIP Bed’ can be rented for 150 euros per day. 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TI - ‘Before long there will be nothing but billionaires!’ The power of elites over space on the Saint-Tropez peninsula
JF - Socio-Economic Review
DO - 10.1093/ser/mwy016
DA - 2018-04-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/before-long-there-will-be-nothing-but-billionaires-the-power-of-elites-NQR9WTyLM9
SP - 435
EP - 458
VL - 16
IS - 2
DP - DeepDyve
ER -