Turf War Ends: Parisians Can Walk On Grass

April in Paris: the delightful time that song lyrics are made of. Like “chestnuts in blossom.” And “holiday tables under the trees.”

Starting this spring, Parisians have a few more things to sing about. Like lovers lolling on the grass in many of the city’s parks, feeling the warming sun on their faces.

In one of those little revolutions that tell a lot about contemporary changes in French lifestyles, Paris authorities have been compelled to revoke long-standing, Draconian regulations that made it illegal to walk on the grass in most of the city’s 413 public gardens, parks and promenades.

Officialdom has capitulated in the face of lounging office workers, Frisbee-tossing tourists and urbanites who simply want to feel the freshness of the grass between their toes.

“We had ended up by being overwhelmed,” said Tristan Pauly, the city’s chief gardener.

As a result, those nasty signs warning it is “defendu” and “interdit” to set foot on the manicured turf are being replaced with smiley faces informing passers-by which lawns can be walked upon and which others are “resting.”

One hundred and seventy-eight acres of grassy space, half of the total, will now be open to the public in rotation.

It is a “breeze of liberty” in the capital’s parks, the Figaro newspaper headlined approvingly.