The world’s most popular tourist destination needs you

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There’s danger when you’re sitting at one of the outside tables at Maitenia in Ciboure, in the Pays Basque region of France. It’s not so much the danger of overeating, or of getting a little drunk in the midday sun, though that is a threat.

The main danger is being hit by a pelota ball. This little bistro is perched right next to the village fronton, the court used to play the Basque sport of pelota, which involves hitting a ball – either with your hand or with a racquet – really hard against a wall and hoping your opponent won’t be able to hit it back.

The bench tables under the big umbrellas outside Maitenia sit right up against the knee-high barrier at the edge of the pelota court. All it takes is a slightly errant shot and you will have a rock-hard rubber ball splattering your cheese course across the table.

To be honest though, I’ve never been hit at Maitenia. Maybe the players are careful; maybe they’re just good.

Instead, I’ve been able to sit there in the warm French sun and eat beautiful food, simple plates that are decided upon each morning after the chefs chat to the fishermen coming in from their nightly mission, after they pick over the vegetables and fruits of the day at the market and decide what will work best together.

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Maitenia is a gem, a treasure, a seemingly simple, affordable bistro that does truly lovely food, driven by local produce and prepared with skill. That food is served at wooden bench tables by laidback staff who pour wine and offer coffee and seem to just enjoy the occasion as much as anyone.

Despite its obvious attractions, however – the food, the wine, the affordability, the position among the French-Basque houses just across the harbour from busy St-Jean-de-Luz – Maitenia has struggled. It has changed owners a few times in the recent past. It closed for a while a few years ago. It’s also a replacement for an old village stalwart, Bar du Fronton, which was forced to permanently close in the 1980s.

What gives? Surely it shouldn’t be so hard to run a bistro in the home of the bistro (France), especially when it’s as good as this.

The truth, however, is that Maitenia and its ilk across the country are in trouble. It is estimated that in the early 1900s there were about 500,000 humble, simple cafe-bistros across France, rural fixtures that served good, hearty traditional cuisine to the local population. By the 1960s that number was down to fewer than 250,000.

And now, there are only between 30,000 and 40,000 left. And they’re closing at a rate of two a day.

There’s a very real danger that this French institution, a style of approachable restaurant that has spread worldwide, a venue that’s as much social-gathering place as purveyor of food and drink, and one that has been a vital part of the French cultural fabric, will disappear.

There are several reasons for this. One is that the French, the same as everyone else, are leaving small rural areas and moving to cities. I have French friends now who live in villages that no longer have a boulangerie, no longer have even a dodgy old bar-tabac, because there just aren’t enough people around to support them.

There’s nowhere for locals to go anymore, no “third place” for the community to mingle naturally over food and drink.

People in France are also staying home more – watching TV, surfing the internet – instead of going out at night. And they’re drinking less alcohol.

All of which makes it more difficult to run a successful cafe-bistro, and more difficult to find people willing to establish or maintain cafe-bistros in far-flung rural areas.

This is sad, you might think, but what can I do about it? Well, plenty.

This is a situation in which mass tourism can be used for good. We hear so many stories of the foreign masses destroying local culture and traditions with over-tourism, but here it can help preserve it.

France is the most popular tourist destination on the planet. More than 100 million international visitors came to France last year for a holiday. That is a phenomenal number of people, and clearly enough to keep a few humble cafe-bistros in business.

The key is to have those tourists stray from the obvious paths, and make decisions to eat in quirky and sometimes even intimidating little cafe-bistros instead of going with the flashy places they’ve read about in the Michelin Guide, or seen on social media, or recognise because they’re chains where they know exactly what they’re going to get.

It will also require tourists to visit small rural villages, places where the attractions might not be so obvious as they are in, say, Nice or Lyon or Bordeaux. Ciboure, for example, the home of Maitenia, is only a 10-minute walk from busy St-Jean-de-Luz, and yet it enjoys just a fraction of the visitors.

French bistro culture has given the world so much. We owe a huge debt. And now it’s time to repay it.

The fact you can do this simply by eating good food and drinking lovely wine and getting to know a place you may never have previously thought to visit makes it a no-brainer. It’s time to save a cultural icon, one entree at a time.