Tourists looking for the best angle for their souvenir photo in front of the Eiffel Tower must play tricks with their smartphone.
Since the end of October, the four imposing statues of the Iéna bridge, which connects the 7th and 16th arrondissements, have been dressed in scaffolding and covered with tarpaulins.
Inside these small iron cathedrals, the sounds of the tools for cleaning and polishing the sculptures accompany those of the generators.
These four horsemen, installed at the corners of the bridge since 1853 and the result of the work of four different sculptors, are renovated especially for the Paris Olympic Games.
Cost of restoration: 140,000 euros.
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Between the opening ceremony, the Olympic events hosted at the Champ-de-Mars and the events at the Trocadéro, these riders representing a Gaul, a Roman (left bank, Place de Varsovie side), an Arab and a Greek (right bank, on the Quai Jacques Chirac side), will be seen from all camera angles throughout the competition, with nearly 4 billion viewers expected.
A rider will find his hand
“The local residents are very attached to it.
The renovation of the two riders on the 16th arrondissement side should be completed in the coming days, then it will be the turn of those on the 7th arrondissement side until April.
We are taking the opportunity to restore one of them which was missing a part of the hand, which will be redone identically,” rejoices Jérémy Redler, the mayor (LR) of the 16th century.
The bases are also cleaned.
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On the other side of the tallest monument in the capital, the traders of the carousel, the Guignol theater, the small karting and the La Bonbonnière de Marie tavern were asked, by the Paris town hall, to leave the premises quickly to make way for future sports facilities.
The carousel installed there since 1986, at the foot of the Iron Lady, has already been removed.
Last year, two statues on Place de la Concorde also benefited from a facelift costing 600,000 euros.
Named Strasbourg and Lille, these works of approximately the same scale as their counterparts on the Pont d'Iéna will also be in the view of cameras around the world.