“Millau, le viaduc de l’impossible” : the documentary that broke ratings records is being rebroadcast on Thursday 20 April

At 8.50pm on Thursday 20 April, RMC Découverte is rebroadcasting a 52-minute documentary - “Millau, le Viaduc de l’impossible” (Millau, the impossible viaduct). The documentary retraces the fantastic human and technological journey to build the Millau viaduct, recognised worldwide as a major feat of civil engineering. The film, which features interviews with the architect, the designer, Eiffage managers and site workers, and local residents from Millau, as well as previously unpublished archive material, documents the construction and key events of this exceptional project.  When it was first shown on 13 October 2016, it broke the record for the most watched documentary on a special-interest channel.

It took 14 years of preparation, three years of construction (2001-2004), the mobilisation of all Eiffage divisions and the commitment of almost 600 site workers at the height of the works, to build the Millau Viaduct. The bridge, which forms the most spectacular section of the A75 Clermont-Ferrand-Béziers motorway, is 343 metres high (19 metres higher than the Eiffel Tower) and 2,460 metres long. Designed by French engineer Michel Virlogeux and British architect Lord Norman Foster, it has slender pylons and a light deck, spanning the valley with just seven points of contact, although its construction required some 85,000 m³ of concrete and 36,000 tons of structural steel. Since it opened to traffic on 16 December 2004, the viaduct has been used by over 50 million vehicles. 
Building the bridge at a site where wind speeds regularly exceed 100 km an hour was a near impossible challenge and one that could not have been attempted without the work of history’s greatest engineers. The film cites in particular John Smeaton, the “Father of Civil Engineering” who created a hydraulic lime compound that was the precursor to our modern concrete, and Sir Gilbert Roberts, designer of the first cable stayed suspension bridge.