Each year, the Blue Flag rewards and valorizes municipalities and marinas that are committed to environmental management and meet specific criteria in terms of the general environment, waste management, water management and environmental education. This year, the French and international jury of the Blue Flag has selected 166 municipalities representing a total of, 396 beaches and 97 marinas .
The Var (83) has the largest number of Blue Flag ports â?" 18 in total.
The Hérault (34) is the department with the most communes with the label, with a total of 13 communes, followed by the Var with 11 communes.
This year, 47 continental municipalities have been awarded the label, i.e. 28% of the labeled municipalities. On the other hand, 27 new laureates enter the 2015 awards list âeuros 4 ports and 23 municipalities, including 12 continental ones.
The new winners in 2015
The 4 ports that have entered the Blue Flag ranking are: the Port of Dives-Cabourg-Houlgate (Calvados), the marina of Loctudy (Finistère), the Saint-Raphaël Vieux-Port (Var) and Port Grimaud (Var).
The 23 municipalities to join the Blue Flag label are Dienville, Géraudot and Mesnil-Saint-Père in Aube; Martigues (Bouches-du-Rhône); Trémouville (Cantal); La-Flotte-en-Ré (Charente Maritimes); Trevou-Tréguignec (Côtes-d'Armor); Carsac-de-Gurson, La Jemaye and Saint-Saud-Lacoussière in the Dordogne; Bordeaux (Gironde); Chorges, Crots and Savines Le Lac in the Hautes-Alpes; Saint-Nazaire (Loire Atlantique); Carolles and Granville in the Manche; Carnac (Morbihan); Banyuls-sur-Mer (Pyrénées-Orientales); La Flèche (Sarthe); Cayeux-sur-Mer (Somme); Hyères (Var) and La-Faute-sur-Mer (Vendée)
How to obtain the Blue Flag label?
To obtain the Blue Flag, two types of criteria must be met: the essential criteria and the guide criteria. The first ones represent the minimum required to obtain the label, the second ones can become imperative, in the long run.
These criteria are grouped into 4 main families:
- Criteria related to environmental education
- Water management criteria;
- Waste management criteria;
- Criteria related to the general environment.
The actions to be implemented are different depending on whether the flag is awarded to a municipality or a port, but among the obligations are the 5 environmental education actions to be implemented, the selective sorting of at least 3 materials on the beach or in the vicinity, the access to people with reduced mobility or the quality of the bathing water which must be of excellent quality for at least 4 years, for the municipalities. For ports, we also find environmental education and waste sorting in a more developed way, but also wastewater recovery and treatment as well as a satisfactory level of equipment, also in terms of rescue and safety.
