Holidaymakers got angry and nervous because of the cicadas’ loud sound. Tourists who spent a lot of money to come to legendary Provence were disappointed by this local feature and even asked the mayor to killed off cicadas, the local newspaper reported.
Georges Ferrero, mayor of Beausset, told the journalists of the local newspaper about two unusual holidaymakers. They came to the mayor to take their grievance and complain about the loud noise made by the cicadas, an integral part of the southwestern biodiversity. In fact, for most of the tourists and local people, cicadas’s noise evokes pleasant memories of summer holidays in Provence or elsewhere. In other words, these sounds of cicadas add to, rather than diminishes, the pleasure of weeks spent in the south of France. But it seems this isn’t the case for everyone.
“Tourists have challenged me about them because it [the noise] makes their blood boil,”
mayor Ferrero told France Bleu Provence and added that many holidaymakers do strange things to make cicadas stop to sing. According to Mr Ferrero, when the noise just got too much for the tourists, they tried putting water on the trees to stop the cicadas singing their famous song.
Georges Ferrero was shocked after they went as far as to ask if insecticide could be used to kill them off.
“They asked me if I have any insecticides to put on the trees? And how to get rid of cicadas,”
the mayor said.
“It’s dreadful. I was very shocked. When we come to the south, we know that there are cicadas. We are proud to have them!”
Despite the insistence of the tourists, whose nationality has not been reported, no follow-up was given to their request, which provoked strong reactions from locals in Beausset.
The most strange requests of the holidaymakers
Tourists are people who want to travel to change their daily life and entourage. But when they faced the different place they often become angry. In Beausset, angry tourists who offered to killed off singing insects are not the first holidaymakers up in arms about the loud buzz made by cicadas — in 2016, tourists lodged a complaint against the noise in Bouches-du-Rhône. And it’s not just unwanted insect clamour which has been known to irritate tourists in the French countryside.
Earlier in August, an angry holidaymaker who wanted a lie-in asked the mayor of the village she was staying in to delay the church bells from ringing early in the morning so that she could sleep in.
