Paris plans green makeover of Champs-Elysees for Games

AFP-Jiji

7:30 JST, May 18, 2022

PARIS (AFP-Jiji) — Paris will give the famed Champs-Elysees a makeover ahead of the 2024 Olympic Games by planting trees and increasing pedestrian areas, the French capital’s officials said May 11.

The French often call it “the most beautiful avenue in the world” but activists complain that traffic and luxury retail have turned it into a noisy and elitist area shunned by ordinary Parisians.

“We need to reenchant the capital’s most famous avenue, which has lost a lot of its splendor in the past 30 years,” the mayor of the capital’s 8th district Jeanne d’Hauteserre told reporters.

“It’s a reduction of the space for cars, to be clear, because that’s how we need to envision the city of the future,” socialist Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said.

The plan is in keeping with other efforts by the city leader to squeeze cars out of Paris and make the city more green, a push that has divided residents with critics saying her policies go too far too fast.

On May 11, the Paris police gave a less than enthusiastic response to Hidalgo’s plans, stressing that the Champs-Elysees is a transport route, which falls under the purview of the French state.

In a tweet, the prefect of police said he would “carefully examine” the proposals from the mayor’s office.

His team pointed out that their boss had not received the proposals, adding that he “must be involved in the project.”

But supporters have lauded the former presidential candidate Hidalgo’s efforts to reduce pollution and increase green areas in the densely populated city that can become unbearable when increasingly frequent summer heatwaves hit.

Around the Arc de Triomphe, which perches atop the Champs-Elysees, the plan is to widen the pedestrian ring surrounding the monument.

And at the bottom of the two kilometer-long avenue next to the Place de la Concorde, the “Re-enchant the Champs-Elysees” plan will revamp the gardens.

“We will create a hectare and a half of green spaces and plant over a hundred trees,” deputy mayor Emmanuel Gregoire said.

Paris will spend €26 million ($27.5 million) in the lead-up to the Olympics on the works set to begin within weeks.

The terraces near the top of the avenue favored by tourists will also be reworked by Belgian designer Ramy Fischler, who will strive to “preserve the identity and personality” of the area, he said.