The big job can now begin. After several years of preparation, debate and controversy, the redevelopment of the surroundings of the Eiffel Tower, the most famous monument in Paris, should begin in the coming months. The city council gave it its final green light on Tuesday, February 8, despite resolute opposition from the right. It is the launch of a program much of which must be completed before the 2024 Summer Olympics, but which will not be fully completed, at best, until 2026. And, at the political level, new proof the weight of environmentalists, who negotiated several notable concessions in the home stretch.
For the City of Paris, the stakes are high. First of all, it is a question of better welcoming the 7 million tourists who visit the tower each year (at least before the crisis due to Covid-19), and the 20 million people who come to its feet for the admire. In the immediate future, it is also a question of providing an adequate framework for the events of the Olympic Games planned in the perimeter (beach volleyball, triathlon, marathon, swimming in open water).
Beyond that, the project aims to adapt to climate change and the new expectations of Parisians an entire area from the Trocadéro to the Champ-de-Mars, by transforming it into a large pedestrian and vegetated promenade. Finally, in a period of financial scarcity for Paris, everything must be done without blowing up the budget, which has already swelled by 50% and now reaches 107 million euros, according to the evaluation carried out in 2020. So many sometimes contradictory requirements , if only because the most ambitious plans from an ecological or aesthetic point of view are often those that cost the most.
Fears of deterioration of the historic site
The only certainty: on this thorny issue, which affects a monument known to the whole planet, the Town Hall has little room for error. Especially since the three boroughs (7and15and16and) concerned all voted for the right during the municipal elections of 2020. Their respective mayors are already denouncing “urban disaster” and ask for a postponement of these “lavish spending”.
The activists of the #saccageparis movement, for their part, fear that the embellishment announced on paper will result in practice in a deterioration of the historic site. “We are going to cut down 21 trees older than the Eiffel Tower and destroy the current setting of the monument”, is alarmed, for her part, Christine Nedelec, of France Nature Environnement. “For the same price, it would be better to acquire and preserve certain gardens coveted by promoters”, adds Julien Lacaze, from the Sites and Monuments association.
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