Macron opened the Arc de Triomphe, which was hidden according to Christo’s plans

“I really wish I had seen him,” Macron said Thursday afternoon in Paris. “It was a crazy dream,” the president said, praising the “perseverance” of the late packaging artist Christo and his wife Jean-Claude. The first photovoltaic installation of the project took place in 1962.

Macron remembers the “elegant young man” who secretly stuffed statues on the Trocadero – artistic precursors to his later major projects. The president thanked the team that worked on the betrayal for two months, including a German engineer. Macron said the silver-blue plastic tarpaulin shimmered “like the roofs of Paris”.

“It is a place that has suffered a lot. We remember the devastation of 2018,” Macron said, referring to the riots in the “yellow vests” protests.

At the opening ceremony, the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, recalled the closing of the Pont Neuf bridge in the French capital by Christ in 1985. “It was as if he had awakened Paris.”

25,000 square meters of plastic and 3,000 meters of red rope were used for covering. The tarpaulin comes from Mnsterland, as it did when the Reichstag was blocked in Berlin in 1995. The project cost about 14 million euros, which was raised through the sale of Christo’s works and souvenirs, among other things.

The crowded monument can be seen until October 3. The huge roundabout is closed to vehicular traffic on weekends.