Singer Lou Doillon, youngest daughter of Jane Birkin, told an anecdote from life at the opening of a bridge named in honour of the actress:

My son asked me: is your mother still dead? I answered him: yes, but today she is becoming a bridge.

One hopes it was the son who is now 3 years old who asked, and not the one who is 23. And yes, Paris now has a bridge named after Jane Birkin.

That is to say, the bridge itself appeared as long ago as 1860, and all this time it was called simply the "Customs Footbridge". Incidentally, it is the first footbridge built across the Canal Saint-Martin. And since it stood opposite the customs service warehouse on Rue Léon-Jouhaux, so it was named.

Now it is Jane Birkin. The logic is now a different one. The city hall has decided to modernise Parisian nomenclature and refresh cultural memory.

It must be said that this is not the first renaming of the bridges over the Saint-Martin; the previous ones also followed the theme of "cinema and theatre". The other footbridges over the canal bear the names of the actresses Arletty, Michèle Morgan and Maria Schneider. The renamings are connected with the fact that this district has often served as a backdrop for film shoots, from the films of Marcel Carné to Cédric Klapisch.

Jane Birkin is known not only for the handbag sung by the residents of Patriarch's Ponds, but also for her work with Michelangelo Antonioni, Jean-Luc Godard and Agnès Varda.

The memorial plaque by the bridge was unveiled by two daughters of the actress, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Lou Doillon, and by the grandson of her third daughter, Kate Barry, Roman de Kermadec