The Pont de Bir-Hakeim started life in 1878 as a modest pedestrian footbridge for the Universal Exhibition. By 1905, it had been rebuilt as something altogether more ambitious: a two-tiered steel structure carrying road traffic below and Métro Line 6 above, with cast iron figures of boatmen and ironsmith riveters by Gustave Michel lining its piers.

Originally called the Pont de Passy, it was renamed in 1948 to honour the Battle of Bir Hakeim, where Free French forces, including Foreign Legion soldiers and troops from African colonies, held a Libyan desert oasis against Rommel's Afrika Korps in 1942.

At its midpoint, the bridge touches down on the narrow Île aux Cygnes, where a statue called La France Renaissante evokes Joan of Arc rising sword in hand.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours trace the bridge's wartime connections, explain the diverse origins of the troops it commemorates and follow the path to the island's quarter-scale Statue of Liberty downstream.