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The Summer Olympics may be over, but the Paris mayor doesn't want to say goodbye. To preserve the spirit of the games, she's proposed making the five Olympic rings on the Eiffel Tower a permanent fixture. That's created what the French like to call a polemique, or a controversy, in which even the Eiffel family has gotten involved. NPR's Rebecca Rosman reports from the French capital.
REBECCA ROSMAN, BYLINE: You could say the idea started innocently enough. Last month, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo told a French newspaper that she wanted the five interlinked 43-foot rings on the Eiffel Tower to stay where they are. Her words - I want the two to remain married. The backlash came fast and hard, like here on French television where sports commentator Pierre Bouby summed it up like this.
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PIERRE BOUBY: (Speaking French).
ROSMAN: "The Eiffel Tower," he says, "is already incredible enough as she is." In other words, if she ain't broke, don't fix her. Built for the 1889 World's Fair, the Eiffel Tower itself was originally meant to be a temporary structure. But the wrought iron monument's sweeping allure has made it perhaps the most iconic feature of Paris. One, the city's inhabitants don't like being messed with. Sensing discontent, Hidalgo backtracked - kind of.
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ANNE HIDALGO: (Speaking French).
ROSMAN: At a press conference, she clarified that the rings would stay on the tower until the next games in Los Angeles, at which point, she says...
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HIDALGO: (Speaking French).
ROSMAN: ..."And then in 2028, we'll see." The answer wasn't good enough for many, including the descendants of the tower's designer, Gustave Eiffel, who put out a statement encouraging Miss Hidalgo to take down the rings by the end of this year. Savin Yeatman-Eiffel is the great-great-great-grandson of Gustave Eiffel. We met at a cafe in Central Paris.
SAVIN YEATMAN-EIFFEL: It's like, you know, when you have the Christmas tree. We had a great Christmas. We have nice decorations on the tree, but now it's time to take the Christmas down.
ROSMAN: On the bridge leading to the landmark, tourists are taking photos as rings loom 200 feet overhead like a centerpiece on the tower's facade. Joseph Burke, an American, tells me, like most great things, the Olympics are ephemeral.
JOSEPH BURKE: And I think the - what they leave behind should be ephemeral, as well.
ROSMAN: We're left with good memories, he says. The games will keep us warm in winter. But then he points up. Just look at that design, he says. For Burke and some vocal French people, those rings have no business being married to a monument the French call the Iron Lady.
Rebecca Rosman, NPR News, Paris.
(SOUNDBITE OF JACK NITZSCHE'S "SONG FOR A SUMMER NIGHT") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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