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CNN Live At Daybreak

Tourists Frequent Paris Crash Site

Aired August 30, 2002 - 06:23   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Time to take you back. Five years ago on August 31, people around the world gasped in disbelief after hearing Princess Diana was killed in a car crash. Now, after all this time, tourists continue to visit the Paris crash site.
CNN's Jim Bittermann takes you there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM BITTERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Without pause, the Paris traffic still rushes through the tunnel where Diana died while on the surface occasional adoring fans still gawk at a monument which has nothing to do with the princess. And five years after her death, the accidental tourist still stumbles into remembrance.

MARTIN FORD, TOURIST: We're not actually stopping here for any reason.

BITTERMANN (on camera): You know what happened here five years ago?

FORD: Is this where Diana was, it's on, this, but we're looking for that. We don't know which one it is. We know it's in one of these tunnels, but is this the one? Is it? All right.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right.

BITTERMANN (voice-over): But if Diana is still somewhat remembered here, there are those for whom the memory can't fade soon enough. Take that monument. Diana devotees have repeatedly laid claim to it with greetings and graffiti, even though it is, in truth, a monument that went up a decade before her death to celebrate French- American friendship. City fathers have once again cleaned it up, adding crowd barriers to keep the Diana devoted at a distance.

Then there are the fans who, from the day after Diana's death, have risked their own lives trying to get a snapshot of where it all took place. Authorities have erected a fence, hoping to prevent any further mayhem in the tunnel. And on a lonely street three miles from the crash site, additional evidence of the desire to move on. Behind a metal security gate at a nursery school open to the public only on weekends is a flower and vegetable garden which is the city's official memorial to Princess Diana. Senior citizens visiting on a flower tour had no idea and no wonder. Among the cucumbers and marigolds, there's not a single plaque to the princess.

(on camera): In fact, in the entire garden about the only thing that really has anything to do with Princess Diana is right here, the Princess of Wales roses, which were planted shortly after her death.

(voice-over): One who's long studied the behavior of her countrymen believes the memory of the princess faded here because gossip about her died when she did.

CLAUDE SARRAUTE, TV AND RADIO COMMENTATOR: It's the gossip. It's the interest. And, of course, when she was alive, there was every day something you could put under your tooth, as we say in French.

BITTERMANN: Still, there will always be exceptions like ex- French policewoman Suzanne Arnaut (ph), so intent on honoring Diana, she crashed the crowd barriers to lay flowers at the monument that has nothing to do with the princess. I know it doesn't, she explained. But this is where she died. I adored her and she must not be forgotten.

Jim Bittermann, CNN, Paris.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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