Pont de Bellerive

About

The Bellerive Bridge (officially the Jacques Chirac Bridge since 2022, formerly the Aristide-Briand Bridge), is a steel-beamed road bridge crossing the Allier River, in the department of the same name, located on the boundary between the municipalities of Vichy and Bellerive-sur-Allier. It was built between 1930 and 1932, replacing the 1870 bridge that had become too narrow and had replaced successive bridges destroyed by the heavy floods of the river. Contrary to what is often said, this is not an expansion of the 1870 bridge, which was destroyed to allow the construction of the new bridge.

The Bellerive Bridge was, before the construction in 1963 of the Europe Bridge north of the city, the only bridge of Vichy crossing the Allier. It is borrowed daily by approximately 30,000 vehicles.