Fort Boyard: How France plans to save its game-show fortress
If you have visited France's Charente-Maritime département, then you may have walked along the coast and noticed the grey hulk of Fort Boyard looming out of the water - located between the Île-d'Aix and the Île d'Oléron.
If you have not seen it in person, you might be familiar with the TV game show of the same name, which has popular French and international versions.
However, the fort now requires serious repairs if it is to stay above the waves.
A picture shows an aerial view of Fort Boyard, off the western coast of France, near La Rochelle, on November 15, 2013. (Photo by XAVIER LEOTY / AFP)
The fort itself - which has something of a stadium appearance inside - dates back to the 19th century, having served as both a military fort equipped with canons and military personnel to protect France against the British, and as a military prison.
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Construction began in the early 1800s under Napoleon, was paused in 1809 and finally completed in 1857.
The fortress was abandoned in 1913, and spent decades gradually falling into disrepair before it was purchased by the Charente Maritime local council in 1961.
TV career
In the early 1990s, the fort became the site for the French TV game show 'Fort Boyard', which involves contestants having to complete challenges to win prize money.
The French version of the show has been running since 1990 and it is still being broadcast on France 2. The 2024 series (the 35th season) had more than two million viewers.
The series has been exported to more than 30 countries including the US, where it ran in 1991 and in a revived version in 2011, and the UK, where it ran from 1998 to 2003. Ford Boyard's creator Jacques Antoine also created the popular, and somewhat similar, British show The Crystal Maze.
Filming for the show takes place inside the fort itself, making it instantly recognisable to millions of TV viewers.
Urgent repairs
Despite still being used for filming, the site is now in urgent need of repair.
The monument is "directly under attack from offshore swells," Matthieu Barbier, the project manager from the Charente-Maritime Departmental Council told
Le Parisien.
"The waves are causing major cracks. Keystones are also starting to loosen. If we do nothing, the fort will be ruined," Barbier warned.
As such, the fort will undergo three and a half years of repairs, which will cost a total of €44 million, and will involve rebuilding the three main protective structures (
ouvrages de protection
). After that, Le Parisien reported there would be a second phase of repairs to 'restore the building to its original state'.
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Reportedly, the filming and construction will co-exist, and construction won't start until July (after both the French and foreign versions of the show have wrapped filming.
Construction will be paid largely by the département, with some from ALP (the company that rents the site for filming of the show) and community fundraising.
At the end of 2024, there was a call for donations, which raised €135,000 toward the repairs.
Once the first phase of repairs are complete, Barbier told Le Parisien that the goal will be to open the building to the public.
ALP also said they would consider leaving some set pieces from the TV game show in place, for visitors to discover.
Currently, it is
impossible
for people to visit, but private boat owners can navigate around the monument, and there are some local ferry services that allow visitors to approach the fortress.
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