At almost 132 years old, the Eiffel Tower is getting the biggest facelift in its history in the run-up to the 2024 Olympic Games, which will take place in Paris.

For her 20th painting campaign, the famous "Iron Lady", one of the most visited monuments in the world in the pre-Covid-19 era, did not do things by halves: exit, on the south arc, the 19 previous coats of paint whose thickness could reach 3 mm.

Exit also the "Eiffel Tower brown" color that the 324-meter building had covered since 1968.

The Tower, which was originally red when it was presented at the Universal Exhibition of 1889, will regain the "yellow-brown" color desired by Gustave Eiffel in 1907.

"It will give a little more 'gold' side to the Eiffel Tower at the time of the Olympics compared to the color that we used to see", underlines Patrick Branco Ruivo, general manager of Sete, the company of operation of the monument.

“We can already see the new color when we look at the top. It's not revolutionary, but when there is a beautiful blue sky over Paris, we see some metallic, shiny effects”, adds- he does.

Some 18,000 pieces to be rejuvenated

Begun in 2019 for a scheduled end in November 2022, the site - stripping and painting - is titanic in view of the 18,000 parts connected by 2.5 million rivets.

Costed at 50 million euros, the operation required a reinforced sanitary protocol for the stripping given the presence of lead in the previous paints.

In addition to specific equipment and decontamination areas, around fifty samples per week were added on the site and in the various areas of the Tower, lists Alain Dumas, technical director of Sete.

"We are extremely careful in terms of safety, it is our priority", he assures, a few weeks after the publication of an article reporting three readings above normal.

"A week later, we re-measured at the locations indicated and we had completely satisfactory values ​​below the required threshold."

The stripping only concerns 2% of the structure at this stage and focuses on the arch which overlooks the Champ-de-Mars, the most subject to wind, rain and sun, and in fact the most degraded.

A degradation planned by Gustave Eiffel, who himself recommended to renew the paint layer every seven years.

A rhythm that has been respected since, with a change of nuance this year.

"Why did Gustave Eiffel choose the color yellow-brown? No doubt so that the Eiffel Tower echoes the whole of the great city of Paris, a city of freestone, of limestone", emphasizes Pierre -Antoine Gatier, chief architect of historical monuments.

"Like on a tree climbing course"

Several hundred meters above the ground, equipped with harnesses, tools and a paint bucket, painters move from one room to another.

Suspended by ropes, they revolve around the 20,000 small lamps which make the Tower sparkle every evening at nightfall for five minutes every hour.

"We move most of the time as on a tree climbing course", explains Antoine Olhagaray, a 22-year-old rope painter.

With "an extra view", complete by his side Charles-Henry Piret: "We do not have the opportunity every day to be suspended on a rope 300 m high."

Do they have the impression of being, almost 70 years later, the descendants of the painter of the Eiffel Tower immortalized by Marc Riboud in 1953?

"We are in continuity", estimates Charles-Henry Piret, who says he is ready to "reproduce this photo version 2021".

With one difference: they would pose restrained by ropes when their "ancestor" posed nonchalantly, cigarette in the beak and hat on the head, holding in one hand a brush and in the other a pillar of the Tower, the city to its feet.

With AFP

The summary of the week

France 24 invites you to come back to the news that marked the week

I subscribe

Take international news everywhere with you!

Download the France 24 application

google-play-badge_FR