France .. shocking report on the state of the Eiffel Tower

When the iron Eiffel Tower was completed in 1889, in Paris, it was expected to remain erect for only 20 years and then be dismantled.

But the tower, which was the tallest in the world for 41 years after its construction, is still standing 133 years later.

Now, confidential reports leaked to the French magazine Marianne indicate that the monument is in poor condition and rusting, and needs a complete overhaul.

But instead of carrying out the necessary repairs, some cosmetic surgeries are being carried out on the tower to prepare it for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, according to allegations quoted by the Guardian newspaper from the magazine.

"If Gustave Eiffel visited the place, he would have a heart attack," a tower official told the magazine.

The iron tower, 324 meters high and weighing 7,300 tons, was built for the 1889 International Exhibition of Paris.

Identifying the rust and stopping its spread was the biggest challenge, said Eiffel, the civil engineer whose company designed and built the memorial.

He noted that it would need to be painted every seven years, writing at the time: "Paint is the primary component in protecting the steel structure, and the care with which it is done is the only guarantee of its longevity."

The tower is currently undergoing a €60 million repaint in preparation for the 2024 Olympics, the 20th time the monument has been repainted.

But a third of the tower was supposed to be stripped and then two new layers put in.

However, delays in work due to the Corona pandemic and the presence of lead in old paint means that only five percent of the rust will be cured.

The magazine quoted experts as saying that the work is nothing but a cosmetic and grafting operation, and they expected the end result to be "unfortunate."

The company that oversees the Set Tower, which is 99 percent owned by the city council, is reluctant to close it for a long time due to lost tourism revenue.

The tower receives about six million visitors a year, making it the fourth most visited cultural site in France after Disneyland, the Louvre and the Palace of Versailles.

Its closure due to Corona, in 2020, resulted in a loss of 52 million euros.

A 2010 report stated that the company must come up with an entirely new maintenance policy centered around testing the aging chassis.

A second report in 2014 indicated that the tower had cracks and rust.

A third report in 2016 found 884 failures, including 68 that were said to pose a risk to the durability of the structure.

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