The yearly event called “Paris Plages” or Paris Beaches, hosted by the City Hall, transforms the borders of the Seine River into a sandy and festive beach for people who cannot afford to go on holidays.
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The direct flights will operate three times a week to Tel Aviv (Monday, Thursday and Sunday) and once a week, on a Thursday to Ovda with one-way flights available for the launch from £89 outbound and £49 inbound.
Simonnet said in its current form, Tel Aviv on the Seine was “the height of indecency” and expressed disbelief the programme did not include any debate or acknowledgement of the Palestinian conflict.
“We cannot act as if it’s business as usual (in Tel Aviv) 40 minutes away from Jerusalem and the occupied territories, and say that Paris will celebrate a certain way of life, some sort of Copacabana-style Tel-Aviv, that would not be decent”, said Eric Coquerel of the Parti de Gauche.
Simonnet, who has represented Paris’ 20th district – which has a large Arab population – for the last seven years, said the day-long festival “sends a very bad message”, and that: “For the Israeli government, this is a nice bit of PR that Paris is serving up on a plate”.
“It is out of the question to allow such an immoral event to go ahead in a public space”, the organisation said in a statement, adding that it was “not about religion but about global law, human rights and human dignity”.
The deputy mayor of Paris, Bruno Julliard, warned that the controversy risked dampening the event, during which authorities pour sand onto the banks of the Seine and set up food and drink stalls.
Simonnet was supported by pro-Palestinian group CAPJPO-Europalestine, which called for protests if “this obscene event is not cancelled”.
“It is Tel Aviv that occurred the most impressive demonstrations of solidarity with the family of the child (Palestinian) burned alive by fanatics”, she saaid.
The French daily Le Figaro reported that the city is planning to mobilize four additional mobile police units and nearly double the number of officers that were originally planned to secure the event, noting that the extra manpower would serve as backup in case of unrest. “Our enemies in France didn’t like that, and they flooded the social networks with calls for the Paris municipality to cancel the event”, he wrote. For him it has clear “hints of anti-Semitism” and the defence of the event from the Socialist mayor of Paris, Ann Hidalgo, is not enough.
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Since 2007, Israel and Egypt have blockaded the Gaza Strip by land, sea and air.
