The mayor of Paris has said a €250m makeover of the Champs-Élysées will go ahead, though the ambitious transformation¹ will not happen before the French capital hosts the 2024 Summer Olympics.

 

巴黎市长近日表示，耗资2.5亿欧元（约合人民币19.7亿元）的香榭丽舍大街改造工程将继续进行，但这一雄心勃勃的改造计划不会在巴黎举办2024年夏季奥运会之前实现。

 

Anne Hidalgo said the planned work, unveiled in 2019 by local community leaders and businesses, would turn the 1.9 km stretch of central Paris into "an extraordinary garden".

 

The Champs-Élysées committee has been campaigning for a major redesign of the avenue and its surroundings since 2018.

 

"The legendary² avenue has lost its splendour during the last 30 years. It has been progressively abandoned by Parisians and has been hit by several successive crises: the gilets jaunes, strikes, health and economic," the committee said in a statement welcoming Hidalgo's announcement.

 

"It's often called the world's most beautiful avenue, but those of us who work here every day are not at all sure about that," Jean-Noël Reinhardt, the committee president said in 2019.

 

"The Champs-Élysées has more and more visitors and big-name businesses battle to be on it, but to French people it's looking worn out."

 

The committee held a public consultation³ over what should be done with the avenue. The plans include reducing space for vehicles by half, turning roads into pedestrian and green areas, and creating tunnels of trees to improve air quality.

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