Alain Robert - With Bare Hands: The true story of Alain Robert, the real-life Spiderman

P aris. The legendary capital of arts, romance, fashion and the human spirit. Arguably the worlds most cultured and chic city, graced by the presence of the Notre Dame cathedral, the Louvre museum, the Eiffel Tower, and the Champs-Elyses the worlds most beautiful avenue, it is said. Well, at least by Frenchmen. Paris means so many things to so many people. It is also synonymous with social success, a place where dreams become reality, as Hollywood would be for cinema actors or London would be for musicians. The connection with climbing? None, except that the French capital marked the real birth of my urban escalations: my eureka moment was stumbled upon accidentally in the bend of a traffic jam on the Parisian ring road.

Leaving my native Drme in south-eastern France and heading into the sprawl of Paris is inevitably a disorientating affair, the capital of any country being dramatically different to the land over which it rules. At the time, my recent escapade with Sector in Chicago was very fresh in my memory. The American newspapers were filled with the exploits of a French climber the journalists called Spiderman. The trip had been an eye-opening diversion but for me it still remained an isolated incident. Despite the ultimate completion of this assignment I had to admit the experience had been a bit disturbing, as no one knew what the hell they were doing and with taking on something untried I could have been killed. I had gone out there with a set of assurances from Sector, which to be fair had tried to arrange things, but we had got into a bureaucratic mess which had ultimately resulted in my arrest! It was hardly what I was led to believe would happen. And on the building itself things could have easily gotten out of hand. Okay, the arrest had eventually turned out to be harmless, although very distressing at the time, but this is not something one seeks out. Indeed the experience had deterred me from attempting such an action ever again.

I was still like everyone else in the game, a rock climber scaling mountains and cliffs. Like Jib Tribout I considered I had engaged in an advertising stunt, a one-off movie thing. The rocky cliffs and pillars of Utah had been my forte, I was right at home there. I had spent intoxicating days climbing in the gorgeous desert wilderness as well as a terrifying hour vaulting up a high rise building. Now it was back to reality, which for me was France and the cliffs here I love so much.

For several years, my solo cliff ascents had attracted the interest of professional photographers seeking dramatic and provoking images and this had led me to develop relationships with several journalists at ParisMatch, one of Frances leading weekly magazines. But as yet I was unable to support myself purely through my passion. I continued to work part-time in a small sports store in my native Valence, with little climbing stunts for several sponsors allowing me to make ends meet.

This particular day, my car was immobilised in the droning fumes of the Paris ring road. Disc jockeys did their best to entertain the scores of thousands of bored Parisian drivers caught in an endless shuffle of metal and rubber. Tired, I cast my eye over the city skyline. For some unknown reason, two enormous towers drew my attention, fertilizing my imagination. These glass arrows dominating the cityscape became majestic spurs. Climbers would leave towns or cities like this to tackle the most distant rocky or icy summits. Then it struck me why not try to climb these urban mountains? The most impressive natural summit, protected by vertical walls and ice slides and shielded by horrendous climatic conditions, nevertheless has its weakness, its Achilles heel. The solution is founded upon discovering this weakness. Once you have uncovered it you may open up a logical path upwards along the most evident route to the summit. And then, when one is ready, and presuming one hasnt used up too many lives, one increases the challenge by looking for the most audacious passages. By adopting such a state of mind, simple office blocks were suddenly transformed into Himalayan summits.

It was quite a revelation. My whole life I had seen such buildings as dwellings, manifestations of a giant replicate interior. I had never stopped to ponder the exterior other than recognising it as a shell required to keep everything from falling out. Late in the afternoon, sat in gridlock a kilometre away from the gargantuan twin forms, buildings I would later learn were named the Mercuriales Towers, my eyes grow wide. And then I look around. Other forms, other buildings, endless miles of them! Everything is here. A whole city! The city is many things to many people, but for me, right now, it is a total revelation. It is a newly discovered mountain range.

The next day, I head to the Champs-Elyses to visit the editorial staff of Paris Match. My proposed project? The escalation of the Mercuriales Towers. And since it is my speciality I will go solo without ropes. Is this just a pipe dream? Im not sure. But maybe the journalists will be interested, so I reveal my vision.

We get chatting and they like the idea a lot, and straight away propose the Eiffel Tower instead. The Eiffel Tower, that iconic symbol of France, has already been climbed early in the 20th century by a team led by Pierre Allain. But for the magazine journalists, guided by a motto along the lines of the weight of words, the shock of photos, the Mercuriales seem very flat. To these guys they seem two-dimensional, perhaps in terms of visual appearance and relief but also in terms of their aura and persona. The magazine looks for the visually spectacular while I need real challenges in term of escalation.

In the course of our animated discussion, a host of potential projects takes over the desk, some more interesting than others. Soon it is clear there is no single building that can satisfy all agendas. Bit by bit, the so-called Tour of Paris by Faades takes shape. We come up with a whole host of buildings across the city and decide that I will attempt to climb as many of these famous landmarks as I can. Paris Match undertakes to involve the media through the press agency Gamma, a company I have enjoyed a lot of cooperation with from my earliest rock-climbing days. Without really knowing what I am doing, or even considering the judicial risks ahead, I calculate I have the financial means to attempt the project. The Tour of Paris needs research and organisation but it will go ahead. I am going to climb some buildings!

Suddenly things start happening. Whilst Paris Match and Gamma are helping to put the Tour of Paris together my phone rings again. After our success in America, Sector have got hold of me again and tell me about their ambition to film the escalation of a high rise building in France

Until recently, I thought skyscrapers could only be found in North America. But since I set eyes on the Mercuriales and bounced ideas off Paris Match I am suddenly seeing new possibilities. The Mercuriales really appeal to me in spite of their comparatively weak dimensions. I learn that since my first escalation in Chicago, Sector has coincidentally been thinking of bigger challenges, thinking of skyscrapers in Paris. It is as if something new has just been born.

Like most European cities Paris is pretty flat, with proportionately little modern high rise architecture, but the business district of La Dfense in the western quarter breaks with the rest of the city and is the obvious choice. Apart from Le Grande Arche, a third-millennium cuboid salute to the Arc de Triomphe, I do not know much about the buildings in the area. A visit is imperative so it is back to the ring road and I point my car west. Little by little, aerial silhouettes emerge then come into sharp focus. In La Dfense I park my car and head out to explore. I turn a corner and then on the square right in front of me Utter shock! A bold glass skyscraper of approximately 200 metres, the highest I have ever seen in France: Le Tour Elf, the Elf Aquitaine Tower. What an amazing sight! The Mercuriales suddenly take a back seat and the Elf Tower pushes its way onto centre stage.