Paris Plages

For those who can't escape to seaside holiday spots, Paris-Plages "Paris Beaches" is the answer. This ambitious scheme was instigated in 2002 by Bertrand Delanoë, the newly-elected mayor, as a haven for relieving the misery of those cooped up in the sweltering city.

French city-dwellers traditionally escape to the seaside or the countryside during the summer, especially in August. Paris is avoided, as the weather is unpleasantly hot and humid, and the centre is full of tourists. Nevertheless, each summer many residents are obliged to remain in the city, however reluctantly.

Paris Plages creates temporary artificial beaches each summer along the river Seine in the centre of Paris. Every July and August, roadways on the banks of the river are blocked off and host various activities, including sandy beaches and palm trees.

Unlike many beaches in France, topless sunbathing is not permitted. Swimming in the Seine is also not permitted, for safety reasons.

The scheme has proven a major success; the number of visitors has grown each year and topped four million in 2007. Every season, new features are added. These include a shuttle ferry linking the two riverbanks, a floating swimming pool, and beaches in different areas of Paris.

The 10th Paris Plages happens from July 21st to August 21st, 2011. This year, ten times more sand than in previous years will await visitors. It will also be possible to play racket sports on the beach as well as build sand castles with buckets and spaces. The biggest of them will be up to 5m high. On the initiative of Disneyland Paris, sculptors will recreate the castle of Sleeping Beauty out of sand.

In 2011, Paris Plages has three main locations: on the square in front of City Hall (Hotel de Ville), along the right banks of the Seine river on the Georges Pompidou Expressway, and along the Quai de la Villette in north eastern Paris.

Bertrand Delanoë, the creator of Paris Plages, has also been behind several of the city’s other inventive programs, many of them environmentally friendly. He introduced the extensive Velib bike rental scheme and a system of non-polluting tramways is nearly complete. He banned the use of pesticides in public landscaping and widened bus lanes to encourage public-transport use.

Paris’s Plages have some environmental benefits, too. Anything that helps stem the massive annual exodus from Paris when cars clog the national highways is a good thing. Paris Plages may reduce the tons of global-warming-causing carbon emissions spewing into the atmosphere.

Within Paris, too, many streets surrounding the plages are closed to motorists, cutting down on cars in the city centre.

And there’s more. According to the city’s website, creating Paris Plages as fully sustainable is an integral part of the plan. For example, to reach its destinations, the 2,000 tons of sand needed for the ambitious project sails down the Seine River (rather than being loaded onto polluting trucks), and is 100% recycled after its use.

Tarpaulins serving as rain cover will also be recovered and turned into bags afterward, sprinklers and water use are strictly managed and Greenpeace sets up workshops each weekend for some educational activism. The Science Museum (La Cité des Sciences) will hold workshops on correctly separating waste, and there’s even an Eco-Library featuring specialized readings and presentations on preserving the planet.

The raison d’être of Paris Plages is to show support for those who do not have the means or the luxury to leave the city. A ‘summer in solidarity’ is the project’s slogan.

© Copyright 2008. All rights reserved