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French ‘Spider-Man” celebrates 60th birthday by scaling 48-storey Paris skyscraper

French free climber Alain Robert, commonly known as France's 'Spider-Man', marked his 60th birthday by climbing a 48-storey building in Paris without any safety equipment on Saturday.

Published: 18 September 2022 08:57 CEST
French solo free climber Alain Robert is pictured mid-climb as he scales the TotalEnergies tower in Paris' La Defense
French solo free climber Alain Robert is pictured mid-climb as he scales the TotalEnergies tower in Paris' La Defense in January 2020. On Saturday 17th September 2022, he did it again. Photo: Thomas SAMSON / AFP

He scaled the 187-metre Tour TotalEnergies in the La Defense business district in Paris.

“I want to send people the message that being 60 years’ old is nothing. You can still do sport, be active, do fabulous things,” he told Reuters news agency.

“I promised myself several years ago that when I reached 60, I would climb that tower again because 60 symbolises retirement age in France and I thought that was a nice touch,” he added.

But once he reached the top of the tower, he was reportedly arrested, according to local French news site Defense-92.

Robert is pictured as he’s in the process of climbing the tower in the below tweet from Defense-92.

He also wanted to raise awareness of the need for climate change action by making the climb, Reuters reported.

Since he began climbing in 1975, Robert has become well known for his daring feats, climbing over 150 tall buildings around the world – including the world’s tallest, Dubai’s Burj Khalifa.

He never uses a harness and relies solely on a small bag of chalk, his climbing shoes and his impressive rock-climbing skills.

But because he doesn’t always request permission before starting a climb, he’s also been arrested numerous times.

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PARIS

Paris takes down ads for ‘transphobic’ book

Posters promoting a book described as "transphobic" have been taken down in Paris after a top city official said the work amounted to hate speech.

Published: 18 April 2024 13:00 CEST
Paris takes down ads for 'transphobic' book

The controversy comes as Paris prepares to host the Olympics from July 26 to August 11.

French advertising firm JCDecaux late Wednesday told AFP the posters had been removed, and apologised to people who could have been hurt by them.

The poster promoted a book titled “Transmania” that describes itself as “an investigation into the extremes of transgender ideology” and the “harmful political project” behind it.

Kam Hugh, a drag queen who has appeared on French television, first alerted the mayor’s office to the existence of the “openly transphobic” poster on X, formerly Twitter, on Tuesday night.

The account of the capital’s Socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo responded, asking about the poster’s location.

In a letter to JCDecaux seen by AFP, first deputy mayor Emmanuel Gregoire asked the advertising firm to remove the series.

“Transphobia is an offence. Hate has no place in our city,” he wrote on X.

Dora Moutot, one of the book’s authors, said the book was not transphobic and denounced “censorship based on assumptions rather than an analysis of the contents” of the book.

She said she and co-author Marguerite Stern had interviewed trans people for it.

“It is a sourced investigation into puberty blockers and certain actors who push for gender transitions and make a profit from it,” she wrote on X.

She slammed what she called a “regression of public discourse and debate”, but thanked Hugh for the free advertising.

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