Main Edition
US
FR
September 12, 2024 - 4:30pm
France has enough controversy and conflict to deal with at the moment. So the last thing it needs right now is a blazing row about the Eiffel Tower. But unfortunately Anne Hidalgo — the socialist Mayor of Paris — has had an idea. She wants to turn the Olympic rings currently adorning the landmark into a permanent installation.
Her plans have provoked a growing backlash. According to a Bloomberg report, those expressing displeasure with her decision —and the way it was made — include Culture Minister Rachida Dati, as well as Gustave Eiffel’s great-great-grandson, Olivier Berthelot-Eiffel. The critics are right to be concerned.
There is, of course, nothing wrong with displaying the logo for the duration of the 2024 games. As a temporary fixture, it’s a fitting tribute from the host city — even if it’s not quite as iconic as the equivalent installation for the 2012 games in London.
But think how weird it would be if the London rings were still hanging from Tower Bridge 12 years later. Though we have fond memories of 2012, most of us have moved on. What’s more, the Olympics have moved on from us. The internationalism of the modern games depends on the fact that no one nation — not even Greece — has a permanent hold upon them. To keep displaying the logo so prominently on the Paris skyline looks like a refusal to let go.
In any case, is it really appropriate to fuse this most global of symbols to a supremely national monument? The Eiffel Tower is gloriously, unmistakably French. It may be a modern, secular and republican response to its Parisian contemporary, the basilica of Sacré-Coeur but, together, the two buildings embody the soul of France. As such, the tower exists to uplift the nation, not to provide an internationalist coat-hanger.
Sadly, conserving our cultural inheritance does not satisfy the postmodern ego. The idea that we might just allow the achievements of previous generations to echo down the ages doesn’t compute with the chauvinists of the present. What survives of the past cannot be allowed to speak for itself: it must be forcibly stamped with contemporary symbols, meanings and values.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeFrankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn
I disagree about the Liverpool waterfront. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with how its evolved. It’s no longer a working seaport in that section of city (there are ongoing docks elsewhere) and the architecture is just fine, creating a blend of the old with the new.
UNESCO haven’t got a clue about how something which is still part of a modern city environment should evolve. Let them pontificate on ancient ruins; that’d be fitting for the people in charge.
Fully agree. It’s still very impressive, especially if you take the option of the ferry from Birkenhead or Wallasey. There’s still a lot of run down areas, of course, and the city should be allowed to develop again.
It is such an obviously terrible idea I cannot believe it will last.
The tower itself was thought to be a bad idea prior to its construction and afterwards. Moves were afoot to demolish it. Only the arrival of wireless telegraphy saved it for posterity. I myself have no desire to go anywhere near it other than for the purpose of examining the nuts and bolts as an engineer. That purpose however, is not sufficient to induce me to take a journey to the site.
Perhaps the Eiffel Tower itself should be dismantled and the steel used to reconsturct Les Halles in facsimile. It was the first of the great secular trivialities to herald the approaching materialist-consumerist age. What is it? What does it mean? What does it do?Is it Mammons Steeple or merely a glorified fair-ground attraction, surely?
Parisians of the 1880’s are said to have been almost unanimous in their revulsion at the erection which they saw as a humiliation and a mockery of their great city.
A circular letter of the period, headed by Charles Garnier, architect of the Paris Opera asked
I believe Guy de Maupassant had it right. He dined in the restaurant at the top of the tower every day for many years. When asked why he favoured the spot so much he is said to have responded that it was simply “the best view in Paris – because it is the only place one cannot see the Eiffel Tower.”.
We, in London, were subjected to this same humiliation-by-commitee by Mr Blair when the ‘temporary’ ferris wheel he rigged up on the South Bank was left to permanently obscure Ralph Knott’s magnificent County Hall and overwhelm the timeless view Westminster which Wordsworth knew.
I often think of Maupassant’s ringing words when I walk north over Westminster Bridge and have my view of those immortal ‘temples domes [and] theatres’ loomed over and bisected by the spokes of the London Eye.