“He was very cool, very calm”

Very rare images of a white shark were filmed by a fisherman off the Var. On RMC, this Wednesday morning, he recounts this surprising meeting.

A white shark seen in the Var. The 4-meter shark was observed on November 4 in the waters of the Port-Cros national park, near the island of Porquerolles. It was an amateur fisherman who found himself face to face with this shark in the Mediterranean, Henri Cavillon. An extremely rare encounter that he was able to film with his phone.

“We are impressed by the size of the beast, but we are not afraid,” he said this Wednesday on RMC, in Apolline Morning. Coming back from a morning of fishing, I see a fin crossing, slowly, without a hitch. I decide to approach 20, 30 meters away. The beast smells me and comes towards me, quietly. She goes around the boat, goes under it. At that moment, we're not afraid but we tell ourselves that we have to stay focused and not do anything stupid.”

For Henri Cavillon, the shark was “very cool, very calm”. “It was still a big beast,” he emphasizes. “Scientists think it’s a young shark. To me, it seemed perhaps a little injured, but I can’t confirm that . It's a very curious behavior from the animal. He came towards me and after a while, he must have considered that he had included me in his data library and he left. The most impressive thing is when it goes under the boat. We're careful, we hold on.”

Around forty white sharks seen in the Mediterranean since the Middle Ages

Only around forty white sharks have been seen in French Mediterranean waters since the Middle Ages according to Nicolas Ziani, scientific director of the Phocaean shark study group. “The images that we can see are extremely rare,” he confirms. “But it is directly linked to protected areas. It has a source of food. They are food pantries.”

The last sighting of a white shark on our Mediterranean coast dates back to 2022, where a 5-meter female was observed in the Camargue natural park…