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LIFE IN PARIS

The Frenchman sailing to find the imaginary roots of the Eiffel Tower

Have you ever wondered where the Eiffel Tower would end up if it went through the centre of the earth and came out the other side? Well if you have, this Frenchman is working on finding the answer for you.

Published: 8 August 2019 16:04 CEST
The Frenchman sailing to find the imaginary roots of the Eiffel Tower
Photo: AFP

Laurent Derobert, a French doctor of economics based in Paris’s Montmartre, has been calculating the imaginary roots of the Eiffel Tower.

These coordinates have become the cardinal points of a unique expedition and he prepares to sail the world to locate the points where they would emerge: ashore of Easter Island, Hawaii, Java and Bouvet Island.

The project falls under a new movement he calls “existentialist mathematics”, and will cover 40 000 miles over 1001 nights.

“I was just gazing at the Tower one night on the roof of the Tour Montparnasse, alone with a good bottle of white wine, and suddenly, I saw the four feet of the Eiffel Tower crossing the Earth to the opposite side of the planet”, Derobert tells The Local.

“We have everything – the boat, team, enthusiasm and hope to set off mid-November.”

Karine Fauconnier, Roland Jourdain, Yvon Fauconnier and Eugene Riguidel have designed this epic voyage

This epic sailing voyage has been designed by Karine Fauconnier, Roland Jourdain, Yvon Fauconnier and Eugene Riguide. Photo : Polyphème.

“Even if I’m desperately seasick, I’ll be part of it!”

This epic voyage has been designed with the help of four skilled sailors: Karine Fauconnier, Roland Jourdain, Yvon Fauconnier and Eugene Riguidel. They will document the daily life onboard the ship in a 1001 page diary.

The plan is to leave Paris in November 2019, reaching the northern root in Hawaii by February 2020. The Eastern root will be located in Java in April 2020, before reaching the Western root in Easter Island in October 2020.

The Southern root will be found in Bouvet Island in January 2021, returning to the Eiffel Tower April 2021.

Laurent Derobert fuses mathematical calculations with creative exploration. Photo : Ying-Ju Lu.

The crew plan to partner with the Eiffel Tower, whose 20,000 light bulbs will represent the luminous beacon that guides the ship back home. Each night, it is hoped that the Eiffel Tower will broadcast in Morse code a message sent from the ship. This message will then be translated via a smartphone application, released for this project to keep people updated about the voyage.

There are 39 artists, proposed by Jean de Loisy, president and curator of the Palais de Tokyo, who will take part in floating artistic residencies associated with this project too.

Derobert’s equations have previously been collected into the book Fragments of Existential Mathematicsand exhibited at the Palais de Tokyo. In 2015, the exhibition ‘Tiana’s Conjecture’ saw him write equations using the tears of women who came to confess their heartbreaks. Otherprojects he has been involved in includemeasuring the gap between dreams and realities.

People can sponsor this Eiffel Tower project and receive a selection of gifts including an annotated map, postcards from chosen stopover points with personalised messages from the crew, or grains of sand gathered during the journey and delivered upon return.

Get in touch with [email protected]

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STRIKES

Striking workers block Paris airport terminal, flights delayed

Striking airport workers have blocked part Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport, with some flights already delayed by at least one hour.

Published: 2 July 2021 12:29 CEST
Striking workers block Paris airport terminal, flights delayed
Striking airport workers outside Charles-de-Gaulle airport in Paris. Photo: Geoffroy van der Hasselt | AFP

Last month, trade unions representing workers at the Aéroports de Paris (ADP) – the city’s Charles-de-Gaulle-Roissy and Orly airports – called for a strike between July 1st and July 5th in an ongoing dispute between French airport workers and bosses over contract renegotiations.

A second wave of protests are expected next week, after a strike notice was filed for July 9th.

Tensions mounted on Friday morning as some 400 protesters staged a raucous demonstration at CDG’s terminal 2E, which mostly deals with flights outside the Schengen zone, as police officers looked on.

At Orly airport, meanwhile, some 250 people demonstrated “outside”, while a small group was inside.

The dispute is over a long-term plan by ADP to bring in new work contracts for employees at the airports, which unions say will lower pay, job losses and a reduction in rights and bonuses for employees.

The strike is being jointly called by the CGT, CFE-CGE, Unsa, CFDT and FO unions, who said in a joint press release that the proposals will “definitively remove more than a month’s salary from all employees and force them to accept geographical mobility that will generate additional commuting time”.

Unions say that staff face dismissal if they do not sign the new contracts.

ADP said on Wednesday that it expected ‘slight delays for some flights but no cancellations’ to services – but it urged travellers to follow its social media operations for real-time updates.

On Thursday, the first day of action, 30 percent of flights were delayed between 15 minutes and half-an-hour.

ADP’s CEO Augustin de Romanet had said on Tuesday that ‘everything would be done to ensure no flight is cancelled’. 

ADP reported a loss of €1.17 billion in 2020. 

Stressing that discussions are continuing over the proposed new contracts, the CEO called for “an effort of solidarity, with a red line: no forced layoffs.”

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