The Zouave statue at the bridge Pont de l’Alma which serves as a measuring instrument for water levels during floods, is partly overflowing by the river Seine in Paris, Friday, June 3, 2016.
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The Orsay Museum, known for its impressionist art, closed through the weekend.
The record for the Seine is 8.62 meters, reached in 1910.
The death toll from the flooding across the country has risen to four while 24 people have been injured, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said after a meeting at a government crisis center Saturday.
Floods due to heavy rains have inundated parts of France, Germany and Belgium this week.
In France, a man on horseback drowned on Thursday after being swept away by a swollen river in Evry-Gregy-sur-Yerres, southeast of Paris. Late Friday, a lightning storm sent 70 people from the festival to the hospital.
“We’re now in the stabilisation phase, even if we could still get one or two centimetres more”, said Bruno Janet, head of modelling at Vigicrues.
Across Europe, at least 17 people have been killed in floods that have trapped people in their homes and forced rescuers to row lifeboats down streets turned into rivers.
France’s meteorological service said Saturday that high flood alerts remained in effect in 13 regions, mostly in central France, including Paris. Some further rain is expected in central France.
The flooding could cost French insurance companies more than €600m (£470m), according to the industry association AFA. Across the city, museums, parks and cemeteries shut down as the city braced for evacuations.
The glass-topped Grand Palais, built for the 1900 World’s Fair and now hosting an exhibit by avant-garde Chinese artist Huang Yong Ping among several others, opened again Sunday after closing Friday because of flood risks. Curators were scrambling to move some 250,000 artworks from basement storage areas at risk of flooding to safer areas upstairs. Both the Louvre and Orsay museums were closed as o.
Many locals have been checking the rise against the statue of a soldier, known as the Zouave, standing below the Alma bridge; his frame is now submerged up to the waist. The level of the Seine started to drop after peaking earlier in the morning.
French President Francois Hollande was visited people affected by the floods in Romorantin in the badly-hit Loir-et-Cher area, also in central France.
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