AND HERE IS THE NEWS…

….a light look at the latest local news with Caroline Manson

Beach club closed for hygiene reasons

Following a recent inspection by the Health Department a beach club at Canet was ordered to close on Wednesday.  The report mentions “hygiene problems in the kitchen and the area behind the bar of the establishment.”  The Robinson Club had already been the subject of an inspection before the start of the high season and had been issued a formal notice at that time.  The owners have made no official statement apart from a post on their Facebook page which says that they are ‘looking forward to seeing you to close this season in style”.

Fly-tippers caught in Perpignan

At the beginning of July a local resident reported having seen a large pile of canisters in an irrigation canal in the Saint-Jacques area of Perpignan.  Police discovered 150 fire extinguishers which had been illegally dumped.  Given the volume and nature of this waste investigations were carried out and they were able to trace the company which had done this.  The manager was called before the judge, admitted what he had done and was duly fined 15,000 euros and ordered to clean up the site.

Mother stabbed by daughter in Maureillas-las-Illas

A family drama turned into a tragedy on Friday 14th in a house on the edge of Maureillas-las-Illas.  At 6am the gendarmes were called and when they attended they discovered two women, a 65 year old woman and her 40 year old daughter, suffering from knife wounds.  The  daughter lived in Maureillas but was very little known in the village, and her mother was from Céret.  It appears that the daughter had stabbed her mother then turned the knife on herself. Both women were taken to Perpignan Hospital where the daughter died of her stomach wound a few hours later.  The prosecutor’s office is investigating the incident but has already mentioned that the younger woman had been being treated for psychiatric problems.

Last Monday evening about twenty firefighters had to intervene to extinguish a fire caused by a large pile of fruit which had been left in the middle of a field on the Montalba road near Ille-sur-Tet.  Due to the heat the pile of fruit had begun to ferment and smoke appeared around 8pm.  This slow-combustion fire took several hours to control and firefighters had to scrape and turn the earth over to make sure the fire was really extinguished.

Theft of copper cable causes communications problems in Perpignan

The theft of a large quantity of copper cables has caused immense problems for customers of Orange.  The theft took place at an installations centre in the Arago district of Perpignan and even one week after the event at least 2000 customers remained deprived of ADSL, Internet and Landline connections.  These customers include individuals and traders alike.  Orange have been providing customers with temporary 4G boxes while they attempt to fix this problems and also try to find the perpetrators.  Cable theft has been on the rise over recent years.

Complaints against food-aid volunteers finally dropped

Volunteers at a food-bank in Pezzilla-La-Riviere have been living under a cloud of suspicion since the end of 2025 when they were accused of theft and misappropriation of food destined for the poor.  The prosecutor has finally announced that no further action will be taken.  The story began when photographs were taken of volunteers loading boxes into their cars.  Complaints were filed and the 13 volunteers, many being elderly ladies who had worked for the charity for over 30 years, were questioned by the police.  The villagers and the Mayor stood by the volunteers as they explained that sometimes they delivered boxes of food in their own cars to people who could not come in person to collect them, and perhaps they stopped off at their own homes on the way but that did not mean that they had kept the food themselves.  They are no longer delivering the food parcels this way and the 13 volunteers and the Mayor and Deputy have filed complaints for defamation of character.

And finally……

(Trigger alert – if you’re eating your breakfast or have a sensitive stomach please do not read on).
The ‘Brown Challenge’ trend which has been sweeping the UK (since the heatwave), France and Spain is now coming to a swimming pool near you.  For those of you who have managed to avoid hearing about this, the Brown Challenge is the latest idiotic TikTok trend where people defecate in public swimming pools and film the results.  Three pools in Spanish Catalonia have been affected recently, including Puerta Aventura waterpark near Barcelona.  Obviously this causes chaos as lifeguards and staff have to evacuate the pools which have then to be thoroughly cleaned and decontaminated.  The perpetrators face huge fines, but tracking them down is a real ‘Poodunnit’.