French towns and cities have banded together to fight Airbnb and other tourist rental platforms which they blame for hollowing out historic centres, driving up property prices and forcing locals to leave.

Charles Bremner www.thetimes.co.uk

Campaign groups from 20 communities, ranging from the fortified Breton harbour of Saint-Malo to Marseilles port and Chamonix, the Mont Blanc mountain resort, have joined forces to press for state action against what they describe as a blight that is disrupting life in their towns.

“This is destruction. Entire neighbourhoods are being emptied,” Franck Rolland, a Saint Malo activist who heads the national group, said at its first news conference. Airbnb, by far the biggest platform, is advertising 800,000 offers of accommodation in France, with 22,000 in Paris, the group says.

Beyond the nuisance of noisy parties, suitcases clattering on cobblestones and messy rubbish bins, the rental boom is creating an exodus of local residents, forcing the closure of shops and schools and causing a labour shortage, the campaigners say. Their main target is not owner-occupiers, but people and companies who buy up property to cash in year-round on the lucrative tourist rental business.

In the southwestern Basque country, where local authorities have recently imposed restrictions, campaigners say half the homes in the village of Guéthary are short-term rentals, with 45 per cent in the port town of Saint Jean-de-Luz and 40 per cent in the resort city of Biarritz. In Saint Malo’s walled city, the first town to crack down on tourist lettings, local anger is reported to have manifested itself in damage to renters’ vehicles. Bastia, Corsica’s main port, began imposing curbs this week.

In the heart of the Alpine city of Annecy, Brigitte Cottet, an anti-Airbnb campaigner, said half the apartment buildings in her street were occupied by tourist rentals. “In the old town, 23 buildings have been declared dangerous for lack of upkeep. Airbnb owners don’t repair roofs,” she told Le Monde.

The campaign has been launched after a bill tabled by a cross-party group of MPs to curb the conversion of private residences into year-round commercial operations was delayed in parliament last month.

Paris has imposed a string of conditions that have cramped the activities of Airbnb and its smaller rivals. Homeowners are restricted to letting their primary residence for a maximum of 120 days a year. Non-resident owners and anyone wanting to rent a property out for more than 120 days must register as a business. Non-resident owners must also convert a commercial property into a residential one to qualify.

The city, however, depends on income from rental visitors and it is relying on Airbnb to help in next summer’s Olympic games. The fat rents that can be charged, up to €10,500 a night for a two-room flat in central Paris, are tempting many residents to think of moving out for the Games.

Paris has been working with Barcelona, Amsterdam and other tourist cities on ways of regulating the business.

Dario Nardella, the mayor of Florence said he wanted to ban short-term lets from the historic city centre entirely, and use tax breaks to encourage more permanent residents.