'Spider-Man' Strikes Again, Climbs 47-Story Building

POSTED: 3:14 pm EDT October 19, 2004
UPDATED: 3:56 pm EDT October 19, 2004

PARIS -- Dressed in a Spider-Man suit and using no ropes or other equipment, a French urban climber scaled the 47-story headquarters of oil giant Total on Tuesday, his second Parisian climb in less than a month.

Alain Robert, 42, who has long called himself "Spiderman," climbed the 614-foot building, located in the La Defense office park on the western edge of Paris, in just 25 minutes.

After his ascent, Robert had to pay a visit to the local police station for his feat but was released without being charged or fined, he said later.

Robert, who is renowned for climbing without ropes or other equipment, has also scaled the Eiffel Tower and more than 30 skyscrapers around the world, including New York's Empire State Building in 1994 and the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia in 1997.

On Sept. 22, he scaled the 59-story Montparnasse Tower. At 689 feet, it is higher than the Total building -- which he scaled in April 2003 to protest the war in Iraq.

The building was then the headquarters of TotalFina Elf.