According to some tourist guides Jardin du Luxembourg is a place to find some park chess. However it depends upon which day you visit. During the week the chess tables seemed empty but a second visit by myself on a Sunday afternoon saw the chess tables overflowing with players and spectators.
Watching some of the games it was a little hard to estimate the strength of players. For every game decided by sacrificial kingside attack, there would be another where one of the players hung their queen. Opening theory also seemed a little rough and ready, so my guess is that for a lot of the games, 1600 would be about right.
But to prove that chess is a universal language, I was able to follow a lot of the discussions, despite having a very basic understanding of French. In one game a player (as white) had played Rxb7, and the opponent was presumably asking if he could castle queenside. 'Non' was the incorrect reply , and so he castled in the opposite direction, dropping the c pawn. I assume it was a case that neither player knew the rules, rather than deliberate trickery. Supporting this theory, I also noticed that 'clock move' seemed to be the rule, as a number of obvious blunders were corrected by moving the piece to a better square before the clock was pressed.
So if you are visiting Paris, definitely drop in, but make sure it is on the weekend, rather than a weekday.
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