Eiffel Tower in poor condition, needs full repair as riddled with rust: Report

Paris' Iron Lady Eiffel tower is in poor state and riddled with rust in dire need of repair, a report leaked to French magazine Marianne stated on Monday. An estimated 60 million euros were allocated for the repair and the makeover to the tower ahead of the 2024 Olympics in Paris but the monument famous worldwide is still in poor condition. The tower is badly in need of  a full repair, the leaked report claims but the authorities have approved a budget just for its "cosmetic makeover," it is reported.

“If Gustave Eiffel visited the place he would have a heart attack,” a manager at the tower, not identified with name, told Marianne.

Tower was painted with anti-corrosive agent now banned

The symbol of love, the 324-metre-tall, 7,300-tonne iron tower was built in 1889 and has at least 2.5m rivets. It was constructed using the puddle iron during the Industrial Revolution. Gustave Eiffel in the late 19th century, is among the world’s most visited tourist sites, and hosts about 6 million visitors each year. It was painted with an anti-corrosive agent which unfortunately is now banned. Stopping the spread of rust was the biggest challenge to the construction’s longevity, and the tower now needs painting every seven years, Eiffel, the civil engineer whose company built the monument, told Guardian. 

“Paint is the essential ingredient for protecting a metallic structure and the care with which this is done is the only guarantee of its longevity,” he wrote at the time. “The most important thing is to prevent the start of rust.” A €60m repaint will likely happen on the tower in 2024 but that would only include the cosmetic facelift and the final result would be “lamentable," experts told Marianne. 

A company that oversees the tower, Sete, is also mulling the closure of the tower for the revamp as it would imply losing millions of tourists. France bore an estimated €52m loss in income after the monument which is visited the most after Disneyland, the Louvre and the Palace of Versailles, was shuttered to tourists due to the COVID-29 pandemic. “Sete must take another look at the Eiffel Tower and come up with a completely new maintenance policy centred on the testing of the ageing metal structure," a report similarly in 2010 had advised, raising alarm about the poor condition of the monument.