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Paris mayor sparks row with plan to keep Olympic rings on Eiffel Tower

Family of engineer Gustave Eiffel say monument ‘is not intended as an advertising platform’

A view of the Eiffel Tower with the Olympic Rings. Photograph: David Ramos/Getty
A view of the Eiffel Tower with the Olympic Rings. Photograph: David Ramos/Getty
Kim Willsher
Mon Sept 02 2024 - 14:32

The descendants of Gustave Eiffel have opposed plans by the Paris mayor to leave the Olympic rings as a permanent fixture on the French landmark that bears the engineer’s name.

The family association said the Eiffel Tower was “not intended as an advertising platform” and that Anne Hidalgo’s announcement that it was for her to decide was “incomprehensible”.

Hidalgo declared at the weekend that the rings would stay. “As mayor of Paris, the decision is mine,” she said.

“I want the spirit of celebration to remain,” she said in an interview with the Ouest-France regional newspaper. “I’m delighted that the French have fallen in love with Paris again, after 10 years of bashing and telling us that it [the Olympic Games] was going to be hell.”

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The 30-tonne, 29x13-metre ring structure is too heavy to be kept permanently on the Eiffel Tower – but Hidalgo said she envisaged replacing it with a lighter steel replica “as soon as possible”.

Olivier Berthelot-Eiffel, Gustave’s great-great grandson and the president of the Association of Descendants of Gustave Eiffel (AGDE), rejected the plan.

“Let the rings remain for a little longer than the Paralympic Games, why not? We have no problem with that,” he said on Monday. “But the Eiffel Tower is not intended as an advertising platform. Anne Hidalgo should surely have said that she wanted to keep the Olympic rings and asked for the opinion of the Paris city council and other competent people, not that she had decided to do so.”

The association said: “While we were delighted, like millions of French citizens, and men and women throughout the world, to see the Eiffel Tower bear the Olympic rings during the Paris Olympic Games 2024, we do not think it appropriate that the Eiffel Tower, which since its construction 135 years ago has become the symbol of Paris and, by extension, of France itself in the world, to carry the symbol of an external organisation, whatever its prestige, attached to it on a permanent basis.”

Savin Yeatman-Eiffel, another of the French engineer’s great-great grandsons said retaining the rings on the tower would hinder it being used to promote other events and causes as it has in the past.

“The Eiffel Tower, which is a symbol of Paris and France, has a much broader vocation that being associated with an organisation or concept like the Olympic Games, he told BFMTV.

Hidalgo said the International Olympic Committee had agreed the rings could remain on the tower. City Hall owns the tower and is a majority shareholder in the company that manages it.

A petition has been launched against the idea. “The place of the Olympic rings during these Games was on the Eiffel Tower, but once the festive season is over, our emblematic monument must return to its natural state. Even if the mayor of Paris wants the opposite,” it read.

France’s acting culture minister, Rachida Dati, who is expected to stand for Paris mayor in 2026, is less enthusiastic about the move.

“Before any decisions or announcements are made on this, it is important that all the procedures and consultations aimed at protecting heritage should be respected,” she wrote on X.

“The Eiffel Tower is a protected monument, the work of an immense engineer and creator. Respect for his architectural style and his work means this must be authorised and its impact assessed in accordance with heritage rules before any substantial modification is made to it.”

Dati said the fixing of the Olympic Rings on the tower was authorised on a “temporary” basis.

The Eiffel Tower was built as a temporary structure for the 1889 Universal Exhibition and has been a listed monument since 1964. – Guardian