“As mayor of Paris, the decision is up to me and I have the agreement of the IOC. So yes, they will stay on the Eiffel Tower,” she explains about of the five rings, hung at the beginning of June on the emblematic monument of the capital. New rings, “just as big but lighter”, will be fixed “as soon as possible” on the iron tower, the rings currently installed are “too heavy” to “last in the long term”, she states.
The elected socialist also expresses her desire to install along the rue de la Chapelle, a “symbolic place” in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, the statues of the ten French women who appeared on the Seine during the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.
And the pool?
“It is a major street that goes to Saint-Denis and the basilica of the kings of France. It's a powerful symbol, I discussed it with Tony Estanguet, who thinks the idea is excellent,” she adds. If the chosen one also reaffirms her desire to see the Olympic cauldron, “an inseparable object of the Paris Games”, kept at the Tuileries, the decision still rests with the President of the Republic, the site being the property of the state.
Regarding the accessibility of the Paris metro, the mayor of the Capital declared “in favor of a complete adaptation” of the network, before emphasizing the “extremely significant costs” of its renovation, which will require additional public revenues.
“I'm willing to participate in the overall effort, even though transportation falls primarily under state and regional jurisdiction, but I don't have the money to finance a third of this titanic project,” she notes.
Days after the launch of the Paralympic Games (August 28-September 8), the mayor of the host city nevertheless hailed “that the French have fallen in love with Paris again” during the event.