Controversial Tel-Aviv sur Seine opens to a chorus of protests
Over 500 policemen are patrolling all day long on the riverbank to prevent any clashes at Tel-Aviv sur Seine. This is part of Paris Plage, a month-long event during which Paris covers the banks of the river Seine with sand, and turns it into a beach.
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Each year, Paris Plage honors a famous beach from around the world, and this year it is Israel’s capital city of Tel Aviv. The fact that Paris Plage has decided to honour this city has sparked protests from leftist and pro-Palestinian groups, who say it sends a very bad message of support for Israel's policies.
Tel-Aviv sur Seine, the one-day event has set up on the riverbanks of the Seine, complete with cultural events and food stands with planned cultural events and food stands to go alongside the event. But the initiative has not been welcomed by everyone. Pro-Palestinian groups accused the Paris municipality of a political faux-pas.
“It’s a way to celebrate the capital of a state which has a colonial policy and which massacres Palestinians” Claude Leonic, the president of the association Plateforme Palestine that brings together several NGOs fighting for the rights of Palestinians, told RFI. “That’s against the values of our Republic, and it’s done under the excuse of Culture”.
Danielle Simonnet, a City Hall councillor from the Left Party, denounced "the indecency of such an event, one year after the massacres on the Gaza Strip by the Israeli army" referring to last summer’s Israeli assault that killed 2,200 civilians including 500 children.
To protest against the Tel-Aviv installation, several groups have set up “Gaza Beach”, an initiative that was given the green light by the French authorities.
Some associations and politicians had asked Anne Hidalgo, the Paris mayor, to cancel the event few days ago. The left and far left claimed it had political overtones, while the far right said the event should only be regarded as being a cultural one.
“Politicians are using this event as a tool, probably to gain some voters” Sacha Reingewirtz, the president of the Union of Jewish Students in France told RFI. “This is very dangerous politics” he added. “This is just a cultural event to celebrate music, to celebrate a city, we are not talking about a political event, or something that deals with the government.”
The Paris authorities have tried to downplay the uproar, and despite the pressure to cancel the event, the city did not back down.
And Hidalgo wrote an article in Le Monde newspaper, explaining that she had picked Tel Aviv because it is a city "open to all minorities, sexual ones, it is creative, inclusive, in a word, progressive, hated for that reason in Israel by all intolerants".
Bruno Julliard, a top official in the mayor's office, said the Town Hall refused to confuse issues. One issue being reprehensible state politics, the other being about individual cities, in this case, the progressive city of Tel-Aviv. The event has nothing to do with taking political sides, according to his office.
However, this is not how the Palestinian community in Paris feels about it.
“The Paris municipality tried to sell us the idea that Tel-Aviv sur Seine had nothing to do with politics and that they, themselves, criticize the deeds of the Israeli government” Nicolas Shahshahani, the vice-president for Europalestine told RFI. “This is hardly understandable, because you cannot say Tel-Aviv is not part of everything in Israel. Many institutions are based there, including the most violent ones. That’s where orders for military operations are given, bombing Gaza for example” he added.
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