The Paris Council has chosen to give the names of Michèle Morgan, Bernadette Lafont and Maria Pacôme to three bridges of this mecca of French cinema.
Three of the nine footbridges and bridges of the Saint-Martin canal in Paris, an emblematic place of French cinema, will take the names of actresses Michèle Morgan, Bernadette Lafont and Maria Pacôme, the Paris Council decided on Friday October 11.
After the Arletty footbridges in front of the Hôtel du Nord, Emmanuel Riva and the Maria Casarès bridge spanning the canal, these new names come to “highlight the cultural richness” of this district of the 10th arrondissement “where theater and cinema occupy a preponderant place” , argued Raphaëlle Primet, Paris advisor.
The name of Michèle Morgan (1920-2016), immortalized in “Quai des Brumes” alongside Jean Gabin, will be attributed to a footbridge. While those of Bernadette Lafont (1938-2013), muse of the New Wave, and the star of the boulevard theater Maria Pacôme (1923-2018), will be two bridges away.
Three more buildings to name
There still remains a footbridge and two bridges to be named on this canal which has served and still serves as a setting for numerous filmings, said Laurence Patrice, deputy mayor of Paris in charge of memory and the fighting world.
The Paris Council will also consider a place in the capital to honor the memory of Alain Delon. The Modem group proposed that a plaque be placed on the former UCG Normandie cinema on the Champs-Elysées, for which the actor “had a deep affection”.
