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Eiffel Tower in Paris: »If Gustave Eiffel were to visit the place, he would faint«
Photo: Benoit Tessier / REUTERS
When it gets dark, the Eiffel Tower glitters for a few minutes every hour on the hour.
The thousands of lights make the landmark of Paris even more magnificent and glamorous than it already is.
But the people who climb the tower should not look closely.
Because: According to a report in the French magazine »Marianne«, the Eiffel Tower is in a disastrous state.
It says: "We saw Notre Dame burn, will we see the Eiffel Tower fall?"
"If Gustave Eiffel were to visit the site, he would faint," a tower manager told the magazine.
The 324 meter high and 7300 ton iron tower was built for the World's Fair in 1889.
And Gustave Eiffel, the civil engineer from whom the landmark takes its name, warned early on that one should take good care of the Eiffel Tower.
»The most important thing is to counteract the occurrence of rust«, reports »Marianne«.
According to this, the rust has already spread so far that the tower would have to be completely restored.
However, it will only be repainted once because of the Olympic Games, which will be held in Paris in two years.
Now for the 20th time.
The painting costs around 60 million euros.
Experts told Marianne the work was just a cosmetic facelift and predicted the end result would be "deplorable," according to The Guardian.
The company that manages the tower is reluctant to close it for a longer period of time because around six million people visit the Eiffel Tower every year.
Admission ranges from 2.70 euros to 26.80 euros.
And without the visitors, income in the tens of millions would be lost.
As early as 2010, a report on the condition of the Eiffel Tower stated that a new maintenance policy had to be developed.
A second report in 2014 found the tower to have cracks and rust, and a third report in 2016 found 884 defects, 68 of which posed a risk to the "durability" of the structure.
kha