A daredevil acrobat walked across a 600-metre-long slackline starting from the Eiffel Tower on Saturday, as crowds nervously watched on.
Nathan Paulin was applauded by cheering observers in Paris as he completed the crossing over the River Seine from 70 metres above the ground.
The 27-year-old had been training for four year to accomplish the feat, which started from the first floor of the iconic landmark.
He even sat and laid down on the tightrope, before arriving at the Chaillot Theatre following the 30 minute show.
Nathan said: ‘It’s really beautiful starting from the Eiffel Tower.
‘During the performance, I really didn’t feel it, I really didn’t have a fear of heights.’
He stopped for a few breaks while walking barefoot across the line in what is thought to be the longest highline crossing in an urban environment ever.
‘It wasn’t easy walking 600 metres, concentrating, with everything around, the pressure… but it was still beautiful’, he explained.
Nathan had some difficulty in getting permission for the stunt and said he was concerned about completing it because of ‘the stress linked to the audience, the fact that there are a lot of people’.
A holder of several world records, he performed the feat to celebrate France’s annual Heritage Day – when people are invited to visit historic buildings and monuments that are usually closed to the public.
He said his motivation was ‘mainly to do something beautiful and to share it and also to bring a new perspective on heritage, it is to make heritage come alive’.
Nathan, who was attached by a safety lanyard to the line, added that he had to overcome a childhood fear of heights before making a name for himself with his stunts.
In 2019, the Frenchman conducted a 150-metre-high, 510-metre-long walk between two skyscrapers in Paris’ La Defense business district.
He had previously crossed the River Seine on a tightrope on Heritage Day in 2017.
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