Phare de la Palmyre, Maritime beacon in Charente-Maritime, France

The Phare de la Palmyre is a lighthouse built in 1960 in the forest of La Palmyre, near Royan in Charente-Maritime. It is a tall cylindrical tower of smooth pale grey concrete, tapering slightly toward the top, with a vertical line of small rectangular windows and a white metal lattice structure and dish antenna on the roof. It stands on a wider square concrete base on a dune north of the Gironde estuary.

The lighthouse entered service in 1960 to warn ships about the dangerous coastal conditions of the Gironde estuary. Since then it has served as a navigation aid for maritime traffic in the region.

The tower is a radiophare, a radio beacon guiding ships, not a visited monument; its light is a directional signal marking the channel past the sandbanks. The first beacon here, on Gustave Eiffel's plans, was lit in September 1870 with a fixed light alternating red and green every 20 seconds. The German troops dynamited the metal turret in 1944.

The tower is a working directional light and radio beacon, and it cannot be visited: there is no interior access or observation platform. It stands on a dune in the forest of La Palmyre, north of the Gironde estuary and south of the Phare de la Coubre, so it is seen from outside, from the surrounding forest tracks.

The tower is topped by a surveillance radar and a white metal lattice, visible from the forest paths. It is a directional light marking the channel past the sandbanks, and it cannot be visited. Eight plans of the earlier lighthouse, drawn between 1870 and 1879, are kept in the national archives.