Jardin des Combattants-de-la-Nueve, Memorial garden near Hotel de Ville, Paris, France.
Jardin des Combattants-de-la-Nueve is a 1,394 m² garden backed by the south facade of Paris City Hall, along the Quai de l'Hôtel-de-Ville. A central lawn crossed by gravel paths is ringed by rose beds, with groves of trees at both ends. At its centre stands the bronze equestrian statue of Étienne Marcel on a tall pale stone pedestal, the rider holding a sword upright and the horse with its right foreleg raised.
The garden occupies the site of the vanished rue des Haudriettes and was long the private garden of the prefect of the Seine, then of the mayor of Paris. In 1871 the fire that destroyed the Hôtel de Ville during the repression of the Commune damaged the garden; only the trees survived, and it was rebuilt in its present layout. It was renamed jardin des Combattants-de-la-Nueve by a Paris Council deliberation in 2015, and the inauguration, postponed after the Germanwings crash, took place on 3 June 2015.
The garden honours La Nueve, the 9th company of General Leclerc's 2nd Armoured Division, mostly Spanish Republicans who were the first Allied soldiers to reach the Hôtel de Ville on 24 August 1944. It was renamed in 2015, and an official ceremony is held here every 24 August during the Paris liberation commemorations.
The garden is reached from 2, place de l'Hôtel-de-Ville - Esplanade de la Libération or from the south end of rue de Lobau; métro lines 1 and 11 stop at Hôtel de Ville. It has been open to the public only on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays, from 9 a.m. until the end of the day, since 24 January 2015.
The henhouse and rabbit cages are reserved for children enrolled at the municipal nursery, which occupies the former private apartments of the Paris mayor in the Hôtel de Ville. The garden also hosts an official ceremony every 24 August commemorating the liberation of Paris.
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