Party-mad mayor shakes Paris from its century-old slumber

By CATHERINE FIELD

PARIS - Seeking to restore the image for daring that a century ago made it the world's undisputed top city, Paris is giving everyone a reason to party on a Saturday night.

The city authorities are bracing for a dusk-to-dawn party and, even better, are paying for it.

The "Nuit Blanche" (literally, a White Night, but it also means an all-nighter) will bring the city alive with the nocturnal opening of museums, gardens and theatres.

And for those with more ghoulish tastes, even the catacombs, where the skeletal remains of six million Parisians are entombed, will be open.

The city's footpaths will be converted into stages for dozens of street bands, dancers and magicians.

In the gardens of the 18th-century Palais Royal, one of the hotbeds of the French Revolution, Vietnamese designer Dang Thi Minh Hanh will present a fashion show.

At the Galeries Lafayette department store near the Opera, Argentine sculptor Pablo Reinoso, will create a giant cocoon. And a group group of German hackers will turn one tower of the National Library into a giant screen on which the public can play computer games or display messages.

The Eiffel Tower and 276 other monuments will be lit up all night, and churches, libraries and swimming pools will stay open until dawn.

The party, which will get the kickoff at 7.22pm this Saturday local time - sunset - and run until breakfast time on Sunday, is the first major cultural fest put on by the Socialist Mayor Bertrand Delanoe since his election in March last year.

"We have to be creative, novel and energetic to enable this city to open up, to vibrate and to feel good," Delanoe said.

Recalling his time as a child in Paris, he said the city's night-life and lights were a delight. But Paris had grown sleepy and the all-nighter might bring Parisians back into the streets late at night.

Co-ordinating the event is artistic director Jean Blaise.

It was his idea to take the all-nighter a step further and allow performances and light shows in the many small, courtyard gardens that hide behind the grand facades of the city's apartment blocks. He also has agreed to set aside Gustave Eiffel's room at the top of the tower so visitors can watch performance artist Sophie Calle lie in bed reading.

In the gallery of palaeontology at the Natural History museum, Korean video artist Nam June Paik will have an installation One Candle to create "a jigsaw of dancing light" among the dinosaurs.

Over the past 10 years, London has been edging out Paris as Europe's capital for excitement, a trend tourist authority bosses are keen to reverse.

Delanoe set the ball rolling this summer by closing down an expressway on the city's Right Bank and turning it into a temporary beach, complete with sand, palm trees, volley ball and deck chairs.

That initiative was hugely popular with Parisians and earned the city acres of free publicity in the world's press.