PARIS — Mayor Bertrand Delanoe, whose sumptuous offices are located a short walk from the Seine River, officially opened the eighth “Paris Plage” on July 20.
The 1.2 mile of concrete quay is carpeted with 2,000 tons of sand, 3,000 potted palm trees and homeless Parisians living in tents provided by the charity Medecins du Monde, or Doctors of the World.
As Delanoe, 60, declared when he inaugurated the ersatz beach — lapped by water that the Ministry of Health says is unfit for swimming — the “raison d’etre” for the $2.7 million, monthlong attraction remains the same.
“It’s a gesture of solidarity with Parisians who cannot afford to go on vacation,” said the socialist mayor, the first to lead a left-wing alliance in Paris since the 1871 Commune.
France has a 9.9 percent unemployment rate that’s higher in predominantly Muslim suburbs lacerated with unrest. Paris Beach has become a release valve for metropolitan tensions during the August “canicule,” or heat wave.
For those Parisians unable to make the yearly exodus to the real Paris Plage in Le Touquet, Normandy, or rush to the southern coast flush with glamour, politically correct summer elegance is no longer sipping cocktails at the Ritz Hotel before a Michelin three-star dinner at Alain Ducasse.
Instead, City of Light officials are urging tourists to relax on one of the 450 deck chairs plopped on the sand provided under a sponsorship agreement with the cement maker Lafarge. Expect a rush for the few dozen hammocks. About 3 million people last year flocked to Paris Beach. They played hide-and-seek with police handing out $48 fines for topless sunbathing, which risked riling Islamic sensibilities, and ate sandwiches sold by project underwriter Monoprix, a grocery chain.
Shortly after the mock beach was closed for the 2002 season, Delanoe, Paris’ first openly gay mayor, was stabbed in the stomach during the all-night “Nuit Blanche” (Sleepless Night) festival. Police said the would-be assassin was Azedine Berkane, a homophobic 39-year-old Muslim from the suburb of Bobigny with a record of violence and drug dealing.
“People must behave according to good standards to maintain tranquility, security and public order,” reads the city ordinance on Paris Beach. “Notably indecent attire (nude sunbathing, G-strings and toplessness) is forbidden.”
Paris Beach, designed by “urban scenographer” Jean-Christophe Choblet, is a requiem for a city in which self-indulgence is no longer fashionable. The New Luxury is organized on other lines. Indeed, the New York-based Project for Public Spaces, a non-profit group that supports revitalization projects, cheers Choblet’s extravaganza of volleyball nets and temporary swimming pools as an urban marvel.
“There are no outrageous logos on display, and the experience never feels overwhelmed by commercialism,” PPS said in a statement.
Still, it’s often difficult to see anything through the smoke from hundreds of outdoor barbeques grilling lamb sausages along the 20,000-square-foot sand strip open between 8 a.m. and midnight. Yet the global reach of Paris Beach can’t be underestimated. Similarly gritty urban-coastal theme parks, which also feature daily concerts and atomizers spraying water to keep the crowds cool, are now the summer-season rage in Rome, Berlin, Amsterdam, Budapest, Munich and Brussels.
“The economy and social discontent have devalued summer vacations,” says Liliane Muller, manager of the luxury Paris tourist consultant company Seatem Group. “Elegance is now a government product.”
The eighth edition of “Paris Plage,” reserved for pedestrians and cyclists on the banks of the river Seine, will run through Aug. 20.
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