Paris city councilors on Wednesday voted to axe the city’s prominent riverside Ferris wheel, the French capital’s version of the London Eye.
Run by “fairground king” Marcel Campion, who has also seen his Christmas market on the Champs-Elysees scrapped because authorities deemed it too tacky, the attraction will be closed from July next year.
City councilors voted almost unanimously against granting him a fresh license for the “Grande Roue,” which has sat intermittently on the Place de la Concorde near The Louvre museum since 1993.
Photo: AFP
Councilors said getting rid of the wheel would help protect the area’s “historic visual appearance.”
They indicated that they were not against a Ferris wheel being erected somewhere else, Paris Deputy Mayor Bruno Julliard said.
It could potentially be set up in time for next year’s Christmas holidays, he said, adding that “anyone could apply to run it, even Marcel Campion.”
The decision comes as a further blow to Campion — who has been embroiled in various legal troubles in recent years — after the council voted in July to get rid of the Christmas market he has run since 2008.
Some local lawmakers complained that the quality of the wares on sale was not in keeping with an avenue that hosts luxury labels such as Louis Vuitton as well as high-street chains such as Hennes & Mauritz.
They want it replaced with a more upmarket site selling products made in Paris.
Angry funfair operators and market stall holders blocked major roads around the capital earlier this month over that decision in the latest of several protests, saying their livelihood was under threat.
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said this week that Campion had been told “we cannot suffer the permanent threat of having the capital blockaded.”
Real estate agent and property developer JSL Construction & Development Co (愛山林) led the average compensation rankings among companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) last year, while contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) finished 14th. JSL Construction paid its employees total average compensation of NT$4.78 million (US$159,701), down 13.5 percent from a year earlier, but still ahead of the most profitable listed tech giants, including TSMC, TWSE data showed. Last year, the average compensation (which includes salary, overtime, bonuses and allowances) paid by TSMC rose 21.6 percent to reach about NT$3.33 million, lifting its ranking by 10 notches
Popular vape brands such as Geek Bar might get more expensive in the US — if you can find them at all. Shipments of vapes from China to the US ground to a near halt last month from a year ago, official data showed, hit by US President Donald Trump’s tariffs and a crackdown on unauthorized e-cigarettes in the world’s biggest market for smoking alternatives. That includes Geek Bar, a brand of flavored vapes that is not authorized to sell in the US, but which had been widely available due to porous import controls. One retailer, who asked not to be named, because
SEASONAL WEAKNESS: The combined revenue of the top 10 foundries fell 5.4%, but rush orders and China’s subsidies partially offset slowing demand Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) further solidified its dominance in the global wafer foundry business in the first quarter of this year, remaining far ahead of its closest rival, Samsung Electronics Co, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. TSMC posted US$25.52 billion in sales in the January-to-March period, down 5 percent from the previous quarter, but its market share rose from 67.1 percent the previous quarter to 67.6 percent, TrendForce said in a report. While smartphone-related wafer shipments declined in the first quarter due to seasonal factors, solid demand for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) devices and urgent TV-related orders
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic fuel stations are this week to rise NT$0.2 and NT$0.3 per liter respectively, after international crude oil prices increased last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices last week snapped a two-week losing streak as the geopolitical situation between Russia and Ukraine turned increasingly tense, CPC said in a statement. News that some oil production facilities in Alberta, Canada, were shut down due to wildfires and that US-Iran nuclear talks made no progress also helped push oil prices to a significant weekly gain, Formosa said
RSS