NUDIST COLONY ON RIVIERA

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27637, 19 April 1955, Page 9

NUDIST COLONY ON RIVIERA

ANNUAL INFLUX OF TOURISTS NAVY SEEKS USE OF ISLAND SITE (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) . „ , PARIS, April 17. A “cold war” has broken out in the sunshine of the French Riviera between Europe’s nudists and the French Navy.

This summer, as in former years, about 4000 sun-hunting nudists from all over Europe are expected to land on the rocky He du Levant, about nine miles off the Riviera coast, and pack away their clothes for the holidays. With them, they bring purses full of foreign exchange and in their wake come boat-loads of fee-paying sightseers. .

The chambers of commerce along the Riviera may not necessarily like nudists as such, but they do like nudists with purses full of foreign exchange—and the sightseers, too. The Navy, on the other hand, owns 90 per cent, of the island and places national security on a much higher plane than international nudism. The Paris newspaper “Paris-Presse” has reported that already sailor guards are at their posts to make sure the sunbathing islanders wear a “necessary minimum.” Nudists who wander too far are likely to get tangled up •in newly laid barbed wire.. The Nayy is keen to take over all of this otherwise bare island with its surrounding deep waters for tests of torpedoes and other underwater equipment.

But, patriotic as they are, Hiviera business men say: "Nudists before torpedoes.”