Princess Diana’s Crash Site Memorial: All About the Flame of Liberty

An eternal flame that burns bright right outside the place where Princess Diana died in Paris, France. However, the monument that has now come to honor the late Princess of Wales wasn’t originally intended for that purpose. Therefore, here are all the details about the Flame of Liberty.

The Flame of Liberty is now associated with Princess Diana

Princess Diana died in 1997 after an accident in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel in Paris, France. She was a passenger in a car driven by Henri Paul. She sat alongside her friend Dodi al Fayed and bodyguard Trevor Reese Jones.

Paul and al Fayed died instantly. Diana subsequently survived the crash only to die later at Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital. Reese Jones was the only survivor of the accident.

The website Travel France explains that the Flame of Liberty, which lies just outside the tunnel, was a monument gifted by the USA to France in 1989. Thus, it subsequently symbolized the USA’s gratitude for the restoration of the Statue of Liberty in New York.

Therefore, a replica of Liberty’s flame was offered to the people of France as a symbol of friendship. Ironically, it is situated above the tunnel where the fatal car accident occurred and turned into a makeshift memorial for the late Princess of Wales.

However, the statue ended up becoming a symbol of Diana’s life. Mourners flocked to the monument to lay flowers or tokens of their love for the Princess of Wales. It is located in a public square in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, near the Seine River.

Twenty-two years after her death, Diana received a proper tribute in Paris

Princess Diana was honored by the city of Paris with Diana, Princess of Wales Square, otherwise known in the country as “Place Diana princesse de Galles.” The flame is at its center.

“We decided to rename the square because it had already been claimed on behalf of Diana by Parisians and tourists,” a city hall official said, according to The Telegraph. The renaming took place in 2019.

2.5B people watched Princess Diana’s funeral

Before her funeral service, Princess Diana’s body was returned home to the United Kingdom by her ex-husband, King Charles, and her sisters Jane and Sarah. Her body lay in the chapel at St. James’ Palace until a ceremony could take place at Westminster Abbey.

The funeral of Princess Diana was held on September 6, 1997. An estimated 2.5 billion people around the world watched it on television. At least 2,000 attended the service in person, and thousands waited outside the Abbey to listen to the service.

Princess Diana’s funeral procession included her ex-husband, Prince Charles; her sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, Prince Philip; and her brother, Charles Spencer. They walked behind her coffin for nearly a mile as it made its way to Westminster Abbey.

Prince Harry recalled to ITV’s Tom Bradby, as reported by The Daily Mail, “There were 50,000 bouquets of flowers to our mother, and there we were shaking people’s hands, smiling. And the wet hands that we were shaking, we couldn’t understand why their hands were wet, but it was all the tears that they were wiping away.”

“Everyone thought and felt like they knew our mum, and the two closest people to her, the two most loved people by her, were unable to show any emotion in that moment,” he said.

Princess Diana died on Aug. 31, 1997. She was 36.