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Walls of bones: How Paris is rebuilding its famous Catacombs

In gloomy burial tunnels under Paris, workers carefully stacked the bones and skulls of people killed during the French Revolution into a new, neater wall.

Walls of bones: How Paris is rebuilding its famous Catacombs
Workers arrange human skulls and bones against a wall on December 12, 2023 during restauration work of Paris' Catacombs (Photo by JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP)

The Paris Catacombs, the final resting place for several million Parisians, is starting to rebuild its collapsing walls of human remains.

This week visitors to the massive underground ossuary, which attracts some 600,000 tourists a year, could spot experts beavering away in a brightly lit corner to realign one of its around 200 stacks of bones.

READ MORE: Skulls, beer and a ‘cathedral’: Discover the secrets of underground Paris

The “wall of the September 1792 martyrs” includes the remains of some 1,000 people killed during one of the bloodiest episodes of the French Revolution.

Dry stone wall builder Martin Muriot said restacking their bones was a balancing act like building any other wall without mortar.

“It’s a bit like playing with wooden building blocks,” he said, dressed in a blue jumpsuit and face mask.

First specialists need to sift through the bones to pick out those in best condition for the new wall’s facade.

“All the damaged ones will be used as filling,” he said.

Nearby two glove-wearing technicians worked together to remove a skull and replace it with another. But as they did, a skull tumbled to the floor.

One of the technicians, Hubert Joachim, then painstakingly placed small bits of debris above a row of fragile skulls.

“Without these wedges, the bones (on top) would touch the skulls and could break them,” said Joachim, who usually handles works of art.

Civil engineer Nathanael Savalle said building a bone wall was a tricky business.

Its blocks are “six times lighter than earth”, he said.

There’s a “lot of empty space both between and inside the bones”.

‘Surprising’ work

French authorities began moving human remains from the city’s burial grounds to abandoned quarries under Paris in the late 18th century, worried that decomposing cadavers were a health hazard.

They then moved more when the capital was rebuilt in the 19th century.

Catacombs manager Isabelle Knafou said rebuilding this first wall — a stack 2 metres long and 1.8 metres high — was a test.

If all went well, others inside the ossuary would be redone next year and the year after.

She pointed to a net holding up another wall not far off, its middle bulging out after a part of the quarry ceiling fell on top of it.

“Bones can last hundreds of years”, but time, erosion and humidity can damage the stacks they have been placed in, she said.

Some 20 metres under the capital’s bustling streets, it’s an unusual place to be rebuilding a wall.

With no bathrooms within easy access, workers have to do three-hour stints.

“It’s a bit surprising at first. We’re not used to this kind of thing,” said Edouard Gomis, another technician.

“But once you get into it, you forget you’re handling bones.”

Muriot, the dry stone wall builder, said he found the work “interesting”.

“But I wouldn’t spend my life doing it,” he said.

He was used to working outdoors in the fresh air, not deep underground.

“It’s not really where I feel most comfortable,” he said.

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PARIS

Famous Paris cinema shuts in sign of Champs-Elysées decline

The UGC Normandie cinema on the Champs-Elysées in Paris closed its doors on Thursday after 90 years - with critics seeing another sign of tourism and fashion sucking the life from one of the world's most famous shopping boulevards.

Famous Paris cinema shuts in sign of Champs-Elysées decline

Once a preferred spot for gala premieres, the UGC Normandie was one of several grand cinemas on the Champs-Elysées that made the area a hub for film buffs in the 1960s and 70s.

But the street long ago lost its cool among Parisians, becoming increasingly dominated by flagship fashion stores and tourists taking snaps of the Arc de Triomphe.

The UGC cinema chain said it faced a “very sharp increase in rent” at the location, which is owned by the Qatari royal family.

Two other famed cinemas on the boulevard, the George V and Gaumont Marignan, have closed since 2020.

“The cinema is disappearing in somewhat terrible circumstances for the whole culture,” said a former employee, 22-year-old Yann Raffin, adding that he feels both “sadness” and “anger”.

“This avenue is transforming into an avenue reserved for the ultra-rich,” he told AFP.

The last screening on Wednesday night was “La La Land” with Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, a fitting tribute to Hollywood musicals of a bygone era.

Its director, Damien Chazelle, appeared on screen with a special message for the sold-out crowd.

“This room was an extension of my own life, it was a friend and an ally,” said Mehdi Omais, 40, a film journalist, visibly moved.

“It’s heartbreaking to see it close and to see this avenue becoming a cemetery of cinemas.”

An auction of the chairs and decor was due on Thursday, including the huge letters on the outside, with proceeds going to a charity that organises screenings for hospitalised children.

Paris remains a film-going hotspot and still has more cinemas per head than anywhere in the world, with swanky new theatres opening elsewhere in the city.

They include a state-of-the-art Pathe cinema near the Opera Garnier, designed by architect Renzo Piano who created the Pompidou Centre and The Shard in London.

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