French Pensioner Made Up to €9,000 a Month on Illegal Parking — Trial Won't Start Until February

In France, an elderly man set up an illegal paid parking lot on his own property near a port and was pulling in between €7,000 and €9,000 a month during the tourist season. The case eventually landed with the gendarmerie, which charged the pensioner with running an unlicensed business, tax evasion and violating building regulations.

According to the gendarmerie, the plot sits right next to the port from which ferries depart for Île d'Yeu, an island roughly 20 kilometres off the coast. At the height of the tourist season, the man was taking in around 50 cars a day at his guarded lot, charging noticeably less than the officially registered parking facilities nearby.

It was apparently those bargain rates that drew in tourists looking to park before hopping on the ferry to the island. Now the enterprising pensioner will have to explain himself in court — though the hearing isn't scheduled until February next year.

Île d'Yeu, visited by around 600,000 people a year, is considered one of the jewels of France's Atlantic coast. Visitors are drawn by its wild beaches, rocky cliffs, tidy little towns, old windmills and a historic fortress. While it's possible to drive there, most visitors prefer to leave their cars on the mainland and cross over unencumbered — which is exactly what created demand for parking spots like this one.

Notably, this is the same island where Marshal Philippe Pétain — one of the most controversial figures in French history — was once interned and later buried. Hailed as a national hero after the First World War, he went on to lead the collaborationist Vichy regime during the Second World War, working alongside Nazi Germany.

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Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz