Paris (AFP)

The packaging of the Arc de Triomphe, a monumental flagship project and the ultimate dream of the artist Christo, who died on Sunday, is still scheduled for the fall of 2021, was assured on Tuesday at the Center des monuments nationaux (CMN) and with project managers.

The project "continues in accordance with the artist's wishes", assured AFP the CMN which manages this monument, one of the most visited in Paris.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the packaging had been postponed to September 18 to October 3, 2021, exactly one year after the dates originally planned.

The president of the CMN Philippe Belaval tweeted after the death of the plastic artist of Bulgarian origin: "We will of course have in heart to realize this project to return to this artist a little of the immense love which he devoted to Paris".

The Center Pompidou, which has been in close contact with the artist of Bulgarian origin and his entourage from the premises of this project, also confirms that it "should be done in the fall of 2021".

"The project is maintained for September 2021: its installation will begin on July 15, 2021 and its dismantling will be completed on October 31, 2021," Laure Martin, president of the "Arc de triomphe bundle" project, whose nephew, told AFP. de Christo, Vladimir Yavachev, is also the director.

According to Ms. Martin, "it was the wish expressed by Christo, even before the death of his wife Jeanne-Claude in 2019, that the project would be carried out if they were to die before". The continuation of the project "has been confirmed to Mr. Belaval by the Elysée Palace," she added.

Famous for his gigantic achievements, which included, among other things, packing the Pont-Neuf in Paris and the Reichstag in Berlin, Christo died in New York at the age of 84.

Designed as a preview to the project, the exhibition "Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Paris!" that the Center Pompidou was to inaugurate on March 16, when confinement had already started, will open on July 1, at the same time as all the spaces of the National Museum of Modern Art.

A tribute will also be paid by the Center Pompidou to Christo.

© 2020 AFP