French tourists who took 600 kg of sand from a beach in Mallorca

ManacorOne morning in 1965, some French businessmen took 600 kilos of sand from the beach of Portocristo to recreate an artificial beach on the French Riviera. That operation, called Operation Plages Internationals, turned a piece of the Mallorcan coast into a curious tourist postcard a thousand kilometers away.

The events took place in the height of summer, when a group of businessmen from Antibes, on the French Riviera, arrived in Portocristo with a clear objective. Dressed in dark suits and sunglasses, they stopped their rental car near the town beach and, according to reports at the time, confirmed that the coordinates were correct. The project was already underway.

The operation was part of a prior agreement with the Navy and the Manacor City Council and was part of a tourism initiative promoted under the name of The SiestaAccording to the promoters, Portocristo beach had been selected as one of the 30 most outstanding in the world, at a time when environmental regulations were practically nonexistent. Within a few hours, heavy machinery entered the beach and extracted up to 600 kilos of sand, the volume needed to build an artificial beach on the French Riviera. The material was packed in blue nylon sacks bearing the project's name and transported by truck to Palma airport, from where an Air France cargo plane carried it to its final destination.

There, in the area around Antibes, the recreated beach was named Portocristo. Balearic Islands Daily He made a statement on August 31, 1965, explaining that the resort included platforms with umbrellas and hammocks so that visitors could stretch out and "dream they were in Mallorca." The exhibit was part of a larger display recreating beaches from around the world, with names like Copacabana, Acapulco, Tangier, and Dakar, turning the French Riviera into an international showcase of sun and beach destinations.