The mayor of Marseille has announced a ban on key safes mounted outside holiday lets in the latest crackdown on seasonal rentals in the city.
City hall agents will be permitted to dismantle the now illegal lock boxes with angle grinders if hosts do not heed warnings to remove the self-check-in service.
Mayor Benoît Payan wrote on social media: “The people of Marseille can’t take it anymore and we’re taking action.
“Stop seasonal rentals invading Marseille!”
Payan claims that key safes in public spaces “litter the streets” in tourist areas of France’s third largest city – home to almost 13,000 short-term rentals.
Host platforms such as Airbnb and Booking.com often leave instructions for travellers to check themselves in and pick up keys by using the safes attached to the entrances of houses and apartments.
A press release on October 23, warned: “[Owners] have 15 days to conform to regulation, and take away their boxes.”
All external lockboxes will be removed from outside tourist accommodation using steel lock cutters and angle grinders if hosts do not conform within the time frame.
Patrick Amico, Marseille’s municipal councillor for housing, said: “The ‘key boxes’ have no place in public spaces without authorisation. The Community is entitled to have them removed by all appropriate means. It will do so methodically and over time. Those who installed them have been informed and deadlines have been granted.”
Amico added that the owners of the axed key boxes can “of course come and collect them from the lost property office”.
Marseille’s local authorities believe that short-term rentals for holidaymakers are becoming an increasing issue in the city, which the city’s mayor said was “emptying the neighbourhoods”.
Speaking on FranceInfo radio Payan recently proposed a new policy which would make short-term rental landlords buy another property and put it up for long-term rental to increase the housing supply in Marseille.
“I’m going to use everything the law allows me as a weapon… It’s going to make them stop wanting to make money off the people of Marseille,” Payan said on the radio, according to Euronews.
It’s not the first time angered activists have targeted tourist rentals.
Earlier this month, anonymous activists in Rome attacked short-term rental properties in the name of Robin Hood amid ongoing overtourism protests across Europe.
Holidaymakers checking into homes in the Italian capital arrived to find key safes hacked off the wall with a protest note and the green felt hat of the famed outlaw in their place.
One note read: “If you are looking for the key safes and can’t find them, read this.
“We are rebelling. We have removed these key storage boxes to denounce the sell-out of the city to short-stay holidays which alienate locals and leave residents out on the streets.”
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