The famous Pont des Arts in Paris will be renovated in 2022

"The work will be held well this year", indicated David Belliard, deputy (EELV) to the roads of the mayor PS Anne Hidalgo, in response to a request from the mayor LR of the XNUMXth arrondissement Jean-Pierre Lecoq to the Council of Paris.

Inaugurated in 1984 on the site of a previous XNUMXth century bridge, the footbridge located between the Louvre and the Institut de France, seat of the French Academy, is world famous for its view of the river, the island of the City and the heart of the capital.

In 2014, part of the bridge's fence collapsed under the weight of nearly a million "love padlocks", definitively removed the following year due to the "sustainable degradation of the heritage" and the "risk" of collapse that they caused, according to the City.

The latter had replaced the fences with glass panels to prevent lovers from reinstalling these padlocks, which ended up weighing a total of 45 tons.

But between the tinkering, the holes or the wobbly boards, the wooden decking of the footbridge "has been in very poor condition for years", underlined Mr. Lecoq.

To the point of becoming one of the symbols of sacking Paris, the movement born in early 2021 on Twitter to denounce the dilapidation of the capital, in particular the poor management of street furniture and roads by the current municipal team.

According to Mr. Belliard, the project was delayed by "the global tension on the timber market" but "the market is in progress to designate the service provider" and "the preparation of the work has been carried out".

The current decking will be "entirely dismantled and the current boards in good condition will be transformed into blades, for benches for example", specified the elected ecologist.

Asked by AFP, the town hall could not specify the timetable or the amount of the work.