Sky-high French bridge opened

France’s newest wonder, a bridge that pierces the sky above the verdant hills of southern France, was officially inaugurated today as jet fighters roared overhead leaving a trail of red, white and blue smoke.

President Jacques Chirac lifted a French flag from a plaque and dedicated the Millau span, which is billed as the world’s tallest road bridge.

“Mission accomplished,” said Jean-Francois Roverato, president of the Eiffage construction group that built and will operate the bridge.

When it opens to vehicles on Thursday, the bridge will enable motorists to take a drive through the sky – 891 feet above the Tarn River valley for a 1.6-mile stretch through France’s Massif Central mountains.

“This exceptional opening will go down in industrial and technological history,” Chirac said, praising the bridge’s designers and builders for creating “a prodigy of art and architecture – a new emblem of French civil engineering”.

The bridge will serve as a symbol of “a modern and conquering France”, he said.

Designed by British architect Lord Foster, the steel-and-concrete bridge with its streamlined diagonal suspension cables rests on seven pillars – the tallest measuring 1,122 feet, making it 53 feet taller than the Eiffel Tower.

The bridge, which has an airy and fluid appearance, was designed to have the “delicacy of a butterfly”, Lord Foster said.

“A work of man must fuse with nature. The pillars had to look almost organic, like they had grown from the earth,” said the man who also designed London’s Millennium Bridge.

Colorado’s Royal Gorge Bridge, towering 1,053 feet above the Arkansas River, is the world’s tallest suspension bridge – but it is designed for pedestrians. The Kochertal viaduct in Germany was the highest roadway, at 607 feet, officials said.

Millau, whose skyline is dominated by the bridge, had until now been best-known outside France as the place where anti-globalisation crusader Jose Bove dismantled a McDonald’s restaurant.

The €393.6m bridge was commissioned to open a new north-south link between Paris and the Mediterranean and is expected to relieve bottlenecks caused by trucks and tourists headed to the Riviera.

Some 28,000 vehicles a day are expected to cross the bridge in the summer months, and about 10,000 a day the rest of the year, according to the Eiffage construction company, which built it.