Bastille weekend and other forthcoming attractions

Life's a beach if you are a car-hating mayor

Legend has it that France tilts towards the Mediterranean with the summer rush south, but there will be an attempt to keep the balance this year with the opening of two miles of Paris beaches from 18 July. Tons of sand will be poured on to the Seine's right-bank expressway to create Paris-sur-mer. The anti-car Socialist mayor, Bernard Delanoë, has also bought hundreds of deckchairs, palm trees and bathing huts, although he has warned people that diving into the river is still a health risk. Ice-cream sellers will make their rounds beside the fishing club, the volleyball pitch and outdoor dance floors, complete with accordion bands.

Delanoë, whose previous moves to restrict motorists' freedom caused outrage, said: 'You'll see - tour operators will soon be recommending Paris-plage in their brochures.'

Bastille Day gets a royal touch

In the 44 years of the Fifth Republic, only two Culture Ministers have left a mark: André Malraux, the Gaullist writer, and Jack Lang, the Socialist theatre director. The latest choice for the job, Jean-Jacques Aillagon, 55, looks like being the third, not just for wearing a bright orange tie in the Cabinet's official photo.

The former history teacher is seen by Socialists as a left-winger, but his first initiative makes clear which side he's really on.

For Bastille Day, he has ordered all royalist strongholds, from the Louvre to Versailles, to hold free celebrations to honour the decapitated Ancien Régime. 'I don't see why the Bastille should be the only symbol,' he said, adding an unconvincing 'Vive la République'.

Dumas makes it to Panthéon

Paris has won the battle of the literary ashes in a showdown with its small northern rival, Villers-Cotterets. Despite a rearguard action by the local museum, the urn containing what is left of Alexandre Dumas, born in Villers-Cotterets 200 years ago this month, will be taken to the Panthéon in September. The transfer to a monument which shelters 71 of France's great and good was ordered by the President, who has a Mitterrand-style taste for funereal ceremonies. His recent contributions to official glorification include Pierre and Marie Curie, and Malraux, whose grandiose tribute to the resistance leader, Jean Moulin, in 1964, remains the model of Pantheonic rhetoric.

French letters add colour

Glancing at the French dead at Waterloo, Napoleon commented: 'A night in Paris will repair that.' Bastille weekend is the height of the coupling season and to counter a rash of unwanted consequences, the city's pro-condom campaign dresses its French letters in colours referring to local icons that may baffle tourists. The funniest adverts show the pink-and-white trademark of Tati, the cut-price clothes store at Barbès, and better known to Parisians than fashion shops in the Rue Faubourg Saint-Honoré. The Boulevard Barbès is now the heart of the most cosmopolitan area of the city, outdoing the Left Bank for its colony of young artists and musicians.