Paris has deployed hundreds of extra police to protect an urban beach event honoring Tel Aviv, after it turned from a summertime celebration into a geopolitical controversy.

Police will search beach bags before and after the 12-hour event with security levels still on top alert after the January Charlie Hebdo attacks that left 17 dead.

The decision to dedicate one day of beach festivities on the Seine river to the Israeli city has sparked condemnation from groups saying it sent "a very bad message" of support for Israel's policies. Protesters plan a rival "Gaza Plage" event Thursday near the Notre Dame Cathedral.

Every summer, the French capital turns the banks of the Seine into a makeshift beach known as Paris Plages and has this year devoted each day to a famous beach around the world. Leftist politicians and pro-Palestinian activists wanted it canceled amid anger over a Jewish extremist attack in the West Bank, but Paris city hall stood firm.

For Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo and her deputy, Bruno Julliard, the event, which will include DJs and Mediterranean food trucks reminiscent of famously freewheeling and liberal Tel Aviv, is about dialogue between cultures.

"We wanted a festive atmosphere with fun, free shows, concerts, food trucks and the like," Julliard told French radio. He stressed that the difference had to be drawn between "the city of Tel Aviv, its citizens, its progressive mayor" and "the Netanyahu government policy that we condemn."

'A very bad message'

But left-wing counselor Danielle Simonnet reacted angrily to the idea. "For the Israeli government, this is a nice bit of PR that Paris is serving up on a plate," Simonnet told France Inter radio. "I fear it will go very badly and I think it sends a very bad message."

"We cannot act as if it's business as usual in Tel Aviv, only 40 minutes away from Jerusalem and the occupied territories, and say that Paris will celebrate a certain way of life, some sort of 'Copacabana-style Tel Aviv', that would not be decent," said Eric Coquerel of the French democratic socialist political party Parti de Gauche.

"We cannot celebrate a certain way of life, the joy of life on the beach just a few days after a baby was burnt," he added, referring to the 18-month-old toddler who was killed when a house was set ablaze on July 31 in the West Bank, an act Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described as terrorism.

Following the Charlie Hebdo killings in January, Netanyahu said he wanted to increase Jewish immigration from France and other European states, where he said there was "terrible anti-Semitism". That prompted some tensions with the French government, which had told French Jews they belonged in France and would be protected.

France has both the largest Jewish and Muslim populations in Europe, and flare-ups in the Middle East have often triggered tensions between the two communities.

dr/jil (AP, AFP, Reuters)