“The first reaction is to say that the heritage must not be disfigured and opposition is linked to concern that a building will disfigure the skyline, but the city must evolve,” Missika said. “Like the Louvre pyramid, which has added something to this historic palace, the Triangle Tower will do the same thing. The reactions are linked to concern that a building will disfigure the city. We cannot be allergic to change.”

Prize-winning architect Christian de Portzamparc also regrets the vote against the Triangle.“We are in a general climate of blockage, of pessimism and bad news about our industrial and commercial future. So it’s a pity to discourage positive moves,” Portzamparc told France TV.

“Public opinion was traumatised by the era at the end of the trente glorieuses, when a quite brutal urbanism came in. But we learned from our mistakes. There was too much [architectural] brutality at the time, and now we have become too fearful. We are in a phase of total rejection – no more concrete, no more building, no more big projects – but it’s not the solution. Cities show us history, but must also show us that there is a future.”

Alexandre Gady, conservationist, historian of French architecture and professor of modern architecture at the Sorbonne, argues that changing or “renewing” Paris diverts from its real need to look outwards. Paris, he says, is a “finished” city that does not need improving or anything more doing to it. “It’s not that we should be doing this or that – we should not be doing anything in central Paris ... any plan is a diversion from the need of the city to grow outwards,” Gady told the New Yorker. He accused the French elite of having no long-term vision and being “mediocre in the sense that they have no capacity for projection, for seeing what’s happened or what’s coming”.

In an interview with the Observer before she became Paris mayor, Hidalgo recognised the problem. “Without doubt the beauty of the city is its monuments and its preservation; there are few cities in the world that have known how to keep their heritage. Having said that, it’s important that the beauty of yesterday does not stop us developing the beauty of tomorrow. It’s a sensitive subject, balancing history and the future, especially when it comes to architecture. But Paris has to move forward; it cannot become a museum.”