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In France, Trump’s Triumphal Arch Draws Eye Rolls, and Echoes of Napole...

It has also cast a fresh light on the Arc de Triomphe and its tangled history, which could serve... Reviled target for the “yellow vest” protesters, who vandalized it later that year. The...

NYTIMES 입력 2026.04.30 13:02 0

In France, Trump’s Triumphal Arch Draws Eye Rolls, and Echoes of Napole...

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In France, Trump’s Triumphal Arch Draws Eye Rolls, and Echoes of Napoleon

The Arc de Triomphe in Paris, which the president vows to top in Washington, offers a lesson in the complicated history of monuments.

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Conceived in 1806 by Napoleon, the Arc de Triomphe has come to symbolize very different things in modern France.

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Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times

Mark Landler

Reporting from Paris

April 30, 2026,

12:01 a.m. ET

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For someone who regularly disparages France in matters of war and commerce, President Trump is not above appropriating its culture. Last year, Mr. Trump ordered up a military parade

inspired by the Bastille Day celebration

he was invited to watch in Paris in 2017 by President Emmanuel Macron.

Now, Mr. Trump is pressing ahead with a plan to construct a triumphal arch in Washington that he envisions, among other things, as one-upping the Arc de Triomphe in the French capital. That has prompted jaded reactions in France, a land that is no stranger to political leaders afflicted with edifice complexes.

It has also cast a fresh light on the Arc de Triomphe and its tangled history, which could serve as a reminder to Mr. Trump of both the ephemeral nature of power and the contested legacy of monuments.

Conceived in 1806 by Napoleon as a tribute to military glory after the Battle of Austerlitz, the Arc de Triomphe has come to symbolize very different things in modern France. Sacred tomb for France’s unknown soldier. Jubilant destination for soccer fans after France won the World Cup in 2018. Reviled target for the “yellow vest” protesters, who

vandalized it later that year

The arch that crowns the Champs-Élysées “embodies our joys, our sorrows and also our anger,” said Jean-Yves Le Naour, a French historian.

But it does not, in any conspicuous way, embody Napoleon. Construction was halted for nearly a decade in 1814, when the emperor was first vanquished and driven into exile. Louis-Philippe, the reconciliation-minded king under whom the arch was completed in 1836, decreed that it should honor not just Napoleon’s imperial army but all those who fought in France between 1792 and 1815.

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