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PARIS 2024 OLYMPICS

Rings, hot-air balloon and horse: What now for Paris Olympic landmarks?

From the extremely popular hot-air balloon to the Olympic rings on the Eiffel Tower and the silver 'ghost' horse there were several landmarks that were widely appreciated in Paris during the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Published: 12 September 2024 10:06 CEST
Rings, hot-air balloon and horse: What now for Paris Olympic landmarks?
The vasque of the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games cauldron attached to a balloon as it prepared to take off at the sunset from the Jardin des Tuileries (Tuileries Garden), in Paris on September 1, 2024. (Photo by Thibaud MORITZ / AFP)

The Paris 2024 Olympics was not only marked by an action-packed opening ceremony and thousands of athletes living out their dreams, it also included the addition of several new landmarks.

Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of the French capital hailed the Games as a success, telling the French daily Ouest-France the city would “never be the same again”.

Here’s what’s in store for the new landmarks after the Games;

Olympic rings

The Olympic rings were placed on the Eiffel Tower in June, prior to the start of the Games, moved from their pre-Games spot in front of the Hotel de Ville. They became an iconic background for tourists looking to take selfies with the Paris monument.

The Olympic rings on the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP

Hidalgo announced plans to keep them in place after the conclusion of the Games, noting that instead it would be five lighter rings of the same size because the current ones are “too heavy” to hold out for a long time.

She specified in a press conference last week that the rings would remain in place until at least 2028, when the Los Angeles Games will begin.

“Perhaps after 2028, they’ll stay and maybe they won’t. Let’s see,” she added.

The mayor’s plan has been met with criticism, including by the descendant of Gustave Eiffel himself.

The Olympic cauldron

As for the vasque – the hot air balloon that contained the Olympic and Paralympic flame during the Games – it is possible that it will stick around as well.

This was highly successful during the Olympic Games, and over 270,000 people ended up booking free tickets to admire the cauldron up close.

Each evening during the Games the vasque carried the Olympic and then the Paralympic flame – although the ‘flame’ was actually an optical illusion using a cloud of mist and LED lights to make it appear to be on fire.

At nighttime, it floated into the air, making it visible along the Paris skyline.

Technically, the Olympic flame itself is now in Los Angeles, host of the 2028 Games, but there are consultations going on about keeping the hot-air balloon in Paris.

One proposal is to maintain it in the Tuileries Gardens. However, Hidalgo previously told the French press that this may be complicated, as the Gardens are technically state property, so French President Emmanuel Macron would have the final say.

The vasque could also be moved to La Villette in the 19th arrondissement in northern Paris.

There are also some technical challenges to consider as well. The hot-air balloon was only intended to be in use for a short period of time, and weather conditions can impact its ability to float into the sky.

Former prime minister Gabriel Attal told the French press that keeping the cauldron in Paris “would be a very nice idea”, and Emmanuel Macron said that he would consider it “in due course”, Franceinfo reported.

The silver horse

The silver mechanical horse, which galloped down the river Seine during the opening ceremony, also made quite the splash.

The Horsewoman, wearing the Flag of the International Olympic Committee gallops down the River Seine on a silver horse during the Olympics opening ceremony. Photo by Clive Brunskill / POOL / AFP

The horse is named Zeus – during the ceremony the rider it carried on its back was intended to represent Sequana, the Gallo-Roman goddess of the River Seine – and was designed by Blam workshop, based in Nantes in western France.

Zeus took over a year to build, and had to be fitted with a special flotation system for the opening ceremony.

The horse was available to visit at the courtyard of Paris’ Mairie until September 8th, but now its future is under discussion.

Pierre Rabadan, the head of sport and games with the Paris city hall, told Franceinfo that there could be a ‘Tour de France’ in store for Zues, as several towns have applied to exhibit him.

As for the horse’s rider – the mysterious masked figure who ran across rooftops during the opening ceremony – this outfit will reportedly be on display at the Palais Galliera fashion museum in Paris.

The female heroes of France

Statues of several female heroes from French history – Simone de Beauvoir, Olympe de Gouges, Simone Veil and Louise Michel – are another legacy from the Olympic and Paralympic Games. During the opening ceremony, they rose from the Seine as part of the ‘Sororité’ segment.

Anne Hidalgo has said previously that she hopes to install them permanently at the Porte de la Chapelle district in northern Paris in the 18th arrondissement.

The arrondissement’s mayor – Eric Lejoindre – told AFP that he supported the idea, which would involve putting the statues on either side of the rue de la Chapelle. 

“As this is one of the main gateways into Paris, the idea of being greeted by women who have left their mark on the history of France seems to be the right one for us,” he said.

However, this plan is still not set in stone, as three municipalities in the Loire-Atlantique département (Saint-Nazaire, La Baule and Le Croisic) have asked the Olympic organising committee if they could host the statues.

Discussions are ongoing with the Paris city hall to make a decision.

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PARIS

Paris and Milan: Closest in the world to becoming ’15-minute cities’

Paris and Milan are among the cities closest to reaching the urban planning goal of being a "15-minute city," while car-dependent metropolises in the United States and elsewhere lag behind, a worldwide analysis said on Monday.

Published: 16 September 2024 17:29 CEST
Paris and Milan: Closest in the world to becoming '15-minute cities'

In fact, the central areas of many cities already meet the definition of a 15 minute-city, which means that residents are within a quarter-hour walk or bike ride from everything they need to a lead a good life, the analysis found.

But even within a city, there are often stark differences between the wealthy inner cities and the urban sprawl on their outskirts, according to the Italian researchers behind the new study.

The concept of the 15-minute city gained traction during the Covid pandemic, when lockdowns put more focus on local neighbourhoods.

It has since been embraced by dozens of mayors around the world — and become the target of conspiracy theorists online.

For the new study, published in the journal Nature Cities, the researchers built an online database looking at roughly 10,000 cities globally.

They used open source data to map out how far of a walk or cycle residents were from different services, including shops, restaurants, education, exercise and healthcare.

“A lot of people already live in a 15-minute city,” study co-author Hygor Piaget Monteiro Melo told AFP.

But it depends on where you look within a city, he said, because of the inequality in access to services between the centre and periphery.

No ‘utopia’

What is clear, the researchers noted, is that population density is a crucial factor — if enough people are living close enough to each other, it is much easier for them to have easy access to services.

This meant that somewhat smaller yet relatively dense cities such as Italy’s Milan or Spain’s Barcelona scored well on their map, which was made available online.

When it came to the biggest cities, “Paris is an outlier,” lead study author Matteo Bruno told AFP.

The mayor of Paris embraced the concept in 2020, and a “considerable fraction” of the city is below the 15-minute mark, the study said.

Some European cities have a head start because they were built centuries ago at a time before cars — when basically all towns had to be 15-minute cities, the researchers said.

Cities built more recently with cars specifically in mind — particularly in the United States — fared far less well on the map.

Atlanta in particular stood out as being a long way from being a 15-minute city. Future Olympic host Los Angeles also lagged behind most others for walkability, as did several Chinese cities including Chongqing.

But when it comes to cities, there are always trade-offs — and there is no single right answer, the researchers said.

“The 15-minute city is often presented as a utopia — it’s not,” Bruno said.

Americans in sprawled-out cities usually have their own houses and backyards, while Europeans in densely populated cities tend to live in apartments, illustrating the important role played by culture, Bruno said.

And central parts of US cities such as New York, San Francisco and Milwaukee were under the 15-minute threshold.

“Manhattan is definitely one of the most 15-minute places ever in the world,” said Bruno, a researcher at Sony Computer Science Laboratories in Rome.

‘Conspiracy mongers’

There has been confusion about the concept in the past, the researchers lamented.

For example, “traffic has nothing to do with the 15-minute city,” Bruno said.

In fact, slow traffic could indicate an area is more pedestrian friendly, he added.

Yet it was new “low-traffic zones” in the UK that turned the ire of conspiracy theorists towards 15-minute city proponents.

Confusing the two ideas, online groups including vaccine and climate sceptics falsely claimed that 15-minute cities were part of a secret plot to restrict the movement of citizens.

The Italian researchers, who have themselves been targeted by “Twitter haters,” emphasised that nothing about the 15-minute city concept involves confining anyone.

Researcher Carlos Moreno, a high-profile proponent of 15-minute cities who has advised Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, was also “attacked by the worldwide conspiracy mongers,” he told AFP.

Moreno welcomed the new study, praising how the idea had swiftly become a topic of interest for researchers around the world.

Just last week, Valerie Pecresse, the right-wing head of the greater Paris Ile-de-France area, presented a plan for a 20-minute region, he pointed out.

Bruno said that the 15-minute metric is just one element in the “recipe” that makes a good city.

Other parts of the recipe include tackling inequality and segregation, improving public transport, reducing traffic and so on, he said.

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