Eiffel Tower ‘is riddled with rust and in drastic need of repairs’… but will only receive ‘cosmetic paint job’ ahead of 2024 Olympic Games, leaked reports say
- Leaked report claims the Eiffel Tower is in drastic need of major repairs
- Rust has attacked the structure and is mostly just painted over, the report says
- Paris is due to host the Olympic Games in 2024 and is currently being repainted
- ‘If Gustave Eiffel visited the place, he would fainted,’ an expert claimed
The Eiffel Tower is riddled with rust and in drastic need of repairs but will only receive a cosmetic paint job ahead of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, according to leaked reports.
Several confidential reports since 2010 seen by French magazine Marianne have warned of the iconic tower being in a ‘very degraded state’, with maintenance defects and the extent of the damage concealed from the public.
Instead, the tower is undergoing a repaint job that started as long ago as 2018 with the upcoming 2024 Olympic Games in mind, but is simply not adequate for the task that needs doing, an unnamed manager who works on the site lamented.
‘It’s very simple, if Gustave Eiffel visited the place, he would have fainted. It is not likely to fall tomorrow morning, but it is true that it is not well at all.’
One hundred and thirty three years after its construction, ‘in some places, rust has won and is eating away at the iron of the monument like termites at wood.’
Several confidential reports since 2010 seen by French magazine Marianne have warned of the iconic tower being in a ‘very degraded state’, with maintenance defects and the extent of the damage concealed from the public
‘It’s very simple, if Gustave Eiffel visited the place, he would have fainted. It is not likely to fall tomorrow morning, but it is true that it is not well at all,’ an expert said. Pictured: A still from a documentary imagining what would happen if people ceased to exist
The tower is overseen by commercial company Societe d’Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel (SETE), who are reluctant to close the tower for the duration necessary to undertake the maintenance due to the loss of tourist revenue it would entail, Marianne said
And French insiders now worry that their leading landmark, erected in 1889 and one of the most visited tourist attractions in the world with 6 million visitors each year, is in danger of suffering a calamity on a scale similar to the one that befell Notre Dame in 2019, when the roof caught fire and burned for 15 hours.
‘In an emergency, in some places, a simple coat of paint is just brushed on the existing layers, which are flaking and do not hold,’ another anonymous expert warned.
The current paint job is costing French purse holders £51 million and is the 20th time the tower has been repainted in its 133 years.
Around 30 per cent of the monument was supposed to have been stripped and two new coats would have been applied, but delays caused by the Covid pandemic and the present of lead in the old paint means that now only 5 per cent of the structure will be treated.
25th August 1944: With the Eiffel Tower in the background, two American soldiers sit surrounded by four young French women during the liberation of Paris from the Germans during World War II
Gustave Eiffel (1832-1923), French engineer, photographed in 1880. His most historic and best-known work is the Eiffel Tower built for the Paris Exposition of 1889 and remained the tallest building in the world until 1930
Another iconic French landmark and tourist attraction, Notre Dame, suffered a calamity in 2019, when the roof caught fire and burned for 15 hours
The tower is overseen by commercial company Societe d’Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel (SETE), who are reluctant to close the tower for the duration necessary to undertake the maintenance due to the loss of tourist revenue it would entail, Marianne said.
The ‘Iron Lady’, as it is locally known, was built by Gustave Eiffel in the late 19th century and was the tallest building in the world for a time, at 1,083 feet tall (330 metres), until the Chrysler Building in New York City was finished in 1930.
Not content to be outdone by the Chrysler and its American makers, a broadcasting aerial was affixed to the top of the Eiffel Tower, making it taller than the Chrysler Building by 17 feet (5.2 metres).
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