On Monday the beach comes to Paris, and this year it's bigger than ever, expanding along canals and into the suburbs
by Agnes Poirier
The Guardian,
Saturday July 19, 2008
Inner city oasis ... deckchairs on the riverbank
It is pure hedonism to want to transform a capital city into a seaside resort, bringing 2,000 tons of sand by boat, displaying more than a thousand deckchairs on its river banks, loaning 85 boats for people to sail for free, planting 950 trees in a single square and building 61 beach cabins on what is, for 335 days of the year, an expressway.
The dapper and energetic city mayor Bertrand Delanoë started these Paris Plages in July 2002, a year after coming to office, and each summer they are copied by more and more cities around the world.
The scheme has been expanded this summer to include more free activities, more palm trees, more concerts, more sand and more bamboo forest; and is about to be launched in many new Parisian locations.
Aside from its original location on the Right Bank, from Pont Henri IV to Quai du Louvre, this year sand and entertainment can also be found in waterside spaces in the north-east of the French capital, along the three canals that lead up to the Villette basin, and from La Villette into various suburban towns.
Paris Plages started life as a socialist fantasy: bring the beaches to those who can't afford summer holidays and create a bit of joie de vivre for the millions of tourists who make Paris the most visited city in the world.
The car-hating mayor could think of no better place for the beach than the Voie Georges Pompidou, the expressway which hugs the Seine's curves, from the Eiffel Tower to the Gare de Lyon.
It may seem an extravagant, potentially environmentally damaging exercise but the sand, which is brought in by boat, will be reused once the sand-castles have crumbled. The water fountains supply municipal water, drunk from free biodegradable goblets, for which 150 recycling bins have been provided, and the 950 trees planted at the place de l'Hôtel de Ville will all be replanted in Paris' municipal gardens.
It was the 2003 heatwave that made the city beach such a popular fixture on the Paris calendar. Three million people, from backpackers to bourgeois Parisians, flocked to try the dozens of free activities on offer from Quai Henri IV to Quai du Louvre: pétanque, guinguettes (cafes turned dance venues), sculpture workshops, fitness lessons, a climbing wall and ping pong tables. Improvised cafes and ice-cream stalls were scattered between the parasols and palm trees along the stretch. Success brought more people each year and every summer revealed a string of new activities such as swimming in prefab pools and rowing on the Seine.
This year, new activities include free fencing lessons at the Tuileries Tunnel and a mini-golf course at the place de l'Hôtel de Ville. Children will enjoy the new table football games (called "baby-foot" in French) placed opposite the tip of Île de la Cité, between Pont Neuf and Pont des Arts. Young dreamers with a taste for Parisian folklore may want to listen to Anne-Sophie Péron telling stories accompanied by accordionist Marcel (between Pont Marie and Pont Louis-Philippe). Parents can head for the library cabin, which offers 250 books on free loan, at the foot of Pont Marie.
Last year, the sand stretched to the north-east of Paris along the Ourcq, Saint Denis and Saint Martin canals, designed by Napoleon in 1808 to bring water to the capital. This year, the beach attractions have been doubled using the entire stretch of La Villette basin, formerly known for its slaughterhouses and meat restaurants, where the canals open into a large basin in the 19th arrondissement. The 85 boats on free loan for sailing or punting, as well as pedalos, should attract visitors to this less visited part of Paris. The old abattoirs may have given way to the Science Museum and La Cité de la Musique but the brasseries remain unchanged. If you want a meaty treat between a scuba-diving lesson and a trampoline session, the belle-époque Boeuf Couronné brasserie on avenue Jean-Jaurès still serves the best bone marrow on toast.
Perhaps even more importantly, this is the first year that Paris Plages is expanding beyond Paris towards the suburbs. Not quite the suburbs that set France on fire in November 2005, but quiet working-class and petit-bourgeois suburban towns on the Ourcq and Saint Denis canals: Pantin, Bobigny, Noisy-le-Sec, Bondy, Aulnay-sous-Bois and Sevran where scuba-diving, kayaking, canoeing and sailing will be taught for free.
Paris Plages kicks off on July 21 at 6.30pm with a free concert of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony performed by the Ensemble Orchestra of Paris with a 120-strong choir on Place de L'Hôtel de Ville. Just after the concert there will be a 3km-long picnic. The supermarket Monoprix, one of the event's 10 invisible sponsors (they are not allowed to advertise their brand anywhere on the sites, but have provided three quarters of the €2m budget), will provide picnic kits - a neatly packed biodegradable basket with cardboard plate, cup, cutlery and napkin - and a 3km-long tablecloth spread like a blanket, as an invitation to passers-by to join the picnic.
There is a saying in French that, in August, Paris is a desert inhabited by tourists and the last eccentrics. Perhaps that's who Paris Plages was always intended for.
However, as with Vélib, the free bicycle scheme launched last summer to a resounding success, it is likely to thrill both tourists and Parisians. Indeed many French political observers believe that hedonistic schemes like Paris Plages and Vélib may help lead Bertrand Delanoë to the Presidency in four years' time.
·Paris Plages (paris.fr) open July 21-August 21. Concerts organised by FNAC (fnaclive.com/festival-fnac-indetendances) every Friday and Saturday 5pm-10pm between Pont Marie and Pont de Sully. Eurostar (eurostar.com) London-Paris from £59 return. Montmartre Studio Lofts (montmartreparis.com) apartment in the So-Pi neighbourhood, south of Pigalle from €200 per night (Sleeps 2).