(La Défense) French mountaineer Alain Robert, known as the “French Spiderman”, climbed the Coupole Total tower, TotalEnergies headquarters in the La Défense district, on Monday to convey a “message of peace”, to 31e day of the war between Israel and Hamas.
Fluorescent yellow jacket, red pants and climbing shoes, Alain Robert climbed the 179 meters of the Total tower under the eyes of passers-by in the business district. He was then arrested, the Hauts-de-Seine prefecture told AFP.
“He was placed in police custody for endangering the lives of others, charges since abandoned by the prosecution,” detailed the prefecture in the middle of the afternoon, specifying that the mountaineer had been released.
Through this ascension, Alain Robert explained that he wanted to send “a message of peace” so that “the great leaders of the whole world sit down, come together, do something to resolve once and for all this conflict with Palestine and with Israel” .
PHOTO MIGUEL MEDINA, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Alain Robert upon his arrival at the top of the Total Tower.
The war between Israel and Hamas was triggered by the unprecedented bloody attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement on October 7 on Israeli soil. In retaliation, Israel vowed to “annihilate” Hamas, relentlessly shelling the Gaza Strip, a besieged territory where 2.4 million Palestinians are crowded together. The Israeli army launched a ground operation there on October 27.
“At the same time as I was climbing, I was thinking about the people in Palestine, and even in Israel, who are being pelted by bombs,” said Alain Robert, once he came down from the imposing skyscraper. He claimed that a “genocide” was underway in the Gaza Strip.
According to the latest report from the Hamas Health Ministry on Monday, 10,022 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since October 7. According to Israeli authorities, at least 1,400 people died on the Israeli side, the majority of them civilians killed on the same day of the Hamas attack.
Alain Robert, 61, regularly conveys political messages while climbing buildings. He has around a hundred to his credit, including those of the Burj Khalifa (828 m) in Dubai or the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and he is listed in the Guinness Book of Records.