Incroyable to me but the NYTimes recently carried a blurb about folks on the Paris Plage, the artificial beach created each August on top of the busy road that parallels the Seine during the month when many Parisians are on vacation, being busted, or ticketed for wearing thongs and women going topless!
This surprises me, especially the topless part because i've seen topless as the norm all over France.

I babysat my French child for several years for several weeks each summer and we saw a lot of beaches and all were topless friendly - in fact topless seemed the norm with women. And even at the local municipal "piscine" - French for swimming pool (love that word for swimming pool!) many women were topless - needless to say we went to the piscine a lot!
So this Paris Plage crackdown seems incongruous and i'm seeking an explanation.
Thongs i can understand because the ones i've seen along the Seine are at times mere strings - gay guys it seems favor them there as they sunbathe along the quais - but topless? Come on - it's France!
Any explanations for this crack down?

That's pretty old news, isn't it? I remember reading that way back at the beginning of the summer (probably when it opened, that they had changed the rules).

I would suggest that maybe it's because this is not a real beach, and it's in the middle of a city with sidewalks around it not too far away. It is probably illegal to walk down the street topless in Paris, also. Sometimes what may be acceptable or appropriate dress in some places is not in others.

well that makes sense i guess - perhaps this is the only beach or piscine in France with that rule.
Yeh it's old news i guess but was just in my current issue of Time Magazine and credited to the NYTimes. It just surprised me so much.

I agree with Christina

Pal, do you have 2 screen names?

Coco- i guess i do now - don't know what happened but i don't use two - just went into profile and changed my e-mail and reverted to Palenque thing i originally used but somehow got changed to PalQ - i don't know how - and now i don't know how it got changed back - didn't note it until you mentioned it.
But i have only one screen name at once and prefer PalQ and will try to change it back!