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When it was completed in 1889, the Eiffel Tower – or as it is known the Iron Lady of Paris – was expected to have a lifespan of up to 20 years before being dismantled. But one hundred and 33 years later, the tower is still standing.
However, some confidential reports published recently in the French magazine Marianne suggest that the monument is in a bad state and full of rust. The tower needs a complete overhaul, the report claims, but instead is only being given a facelift for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
“If Gustave Eiffel visited the place, he would have a heart attack,” Marianne told a tower manager. Eiffel, whose company designed and built the monument, said at the time that identifying and stopping the spread of rust was the biggest challenge to the tower’s longevity and suggested it would need painting every seven years.
The tower is now undergoing a €60 million repainting in preparation for the 2024 Olympic Games, this is the 20th time the monument has been repainted. A third of the tower was supposed to be completely stripped and then two new layers applied.
The company that oversees the tower, Sete, which is 99% owned by the municipality, is reluctant to close it for a long period because of the tourism revenue that would be lost. The tower receives around 6 million visitors in a typical year, making it the fourth most visited cultural site in France after Disneyland, the Louvre and the Palace of Versailles. Its Covid-forced closure in 2020 led to a loss of €52 million in revenue.
A report in 2014 found that the tower had cracks and rust, and another report in 2016 found 884 defects, including 68 that were said to pose a risk to the “stability” of the structure.
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