L'accès au pelouses des jardins publics des ville est-il autorisé?

Que signifie la réponse "sex people crowd" ?

To answer Cécile's question: In some public parks/gardens, people are allowed on the lawns to play frisbee, get a suntan, etc. In others, they will put up signs that say "Keep off the grass", and may even put up ropes around the grass to prevent people from walking on it. If you ever have a chance to visit the Harvard campus, they have so many tourists that they have had to put ropes around most of the lawns at the school.

In answer to Vincent's question, some public spaces (especially bathrooms) are occasionally used for sexual activities. Typically gay men and prostitutes are singled out, but I suspect the practice is not limited to those two groups.

It seems that many of the French responses to public places are negative, for example "foule", "bruyants", "inhospitaliers", "dangereux", "stressant". Is there a preference for meeting with friends in private places? Or are people not thinking about, say, museums and cafés, when they describe public places as dangerous or stressful?

Also, I found it very curious that "library" comes up often for American students but not for the French students. Are public libraries common? Are they just not considered a public place?

I found it interesting how the word "respect" was associated to public places by so many INT- students but it did not come up once in the MIT students' responses. Why is that?

je pense que c'est dû au fait que justement nous avons en France un problème à ce niveau là .En effet de nombreuses personnes ne respectent pas les lieux publics ..;je ne sais pas si tu es déjà venue en France mais il est consternant de voir à quel point certaines personnes peuvent agir .Je pense que les étudiants de MIT n'ont pas mentionné ce problème car vous êtes très respectueux des règles à observer dans des lieux publics et que cela vous semble naturel!

Hello all! I noticed that the list by American students is mainly comprised of physical places-- i.e. parks, museums, etc. The list by the French students contains many more words that don't deal with physical places. For example, the word respect is the most prevalent, and other words like rencontre and communaute also come up often. Like Patricia said, it's interesting that these words don't show up in the responses by MIT students....

Are there many public parks in france for people to go to?

Judging from the difference of responses from french and american students it seems like it is a conceptual difference. For many americans, public places refer to areas where families/friends can go to spend time, often for little money - such as parks, museums, amusement parks, etc. is this not a common occurence in france? I know there exists many museums and cathedrals to visit but perhaps that is more of a tourist area.