Millau Viaduct Millau Viaduct The Millau Viaduct (, ) is a cable-stayed bridge that spans the gorge valley of the Tarn near Millau in southern France. In a Franco-British partnership, it was designed by the English architect Lord Norman Foster and French structural engineer Michel Virlogeux. , it is the tallest bridge in the world, having a structural height of . The Millau Viaduct is part of the A75-A71 autoroute axis from Paris to Béziers and Montpellier. The cost of construction was approximately € 394 million. It was built over three years, formally inaugurated on 14 December 2004, and opened to traffic
Millau had one of the major mediaeval bridges across the river Tarn. It had 17 spans, but after one poorly maintained span fell in the 18th century, the bridge was mostly demolished. Just one span remains, with a mill that is now an art gallery, as testament to this significant trading route from north to south across pre-Renaissance France. In 1999, José Bové, a local Larzac anti-globalisation activist demolished the Millau McDonald's as it was being built, in symbolic protest of the decision by the Court of the World Trade Organization to allow the United States to overtax the import of