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Eiffel Tower Fast Facts

By CNN

(CNN) — Here is a look at the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

Facts

Almost seven million people visit the Eiffel Tower annually.

Designer Gustave Eiffel had a small apartment cloistered away in the upper reaches of the tower. In 2016, a second (temporary) apartment was built inside the tower by vacation rental company, HomeAway. The firm held a contest, selecting four winners to spend one night each in the apartment, with up to five guests.

The names of 72 French scientists are listed on the four sides of the tower.

The premises are under video surveillance.

Security checks are performed prior to entry and visitors are required to disclose the contents of their bags.

There is a police station located at the foot of the south pillar.

Characteristics

Height: 330 meters (1,083 feet)

Metal framework weight: 7,300 tons of iron

Total weight: 10,100 tons

The Tower is repainted every seven years, with 60 metric tons of paint.

There are 1,665 steps to the top of the tower.

Construction

1887-1889 (2 years, 2 months and 5 days).

Original designers: Gustave Eiffel, Maurice Koechlin, Emile Nouguier, Stephen Sauvestre.

50 engineers and designers produced 5,300 workshop designs.

The tower was constructed with some 18,038 individual metallic pieces.

Timeline

1889 – The tower opens during the Universal Exposition, a fair celebrating the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution. It is the tallest structure in the world until 1930, when the Chrysler Building opens in New York.

1981-1982 – Two phases of renovations are completed, with new facilities including a conference room, post office and screening room.

1985 – An illumination system called Golden Lighting is unveiled, with 336 projectors and yellow-orange lamps.

December 31, 1999 – A sparkling light show debuts to mark the new millennium. The lights glimmer nightly for five minutes every hour on the hour until 1 a.m. Originally planned as a temporary display, the light show becomes a permanent fixture by popular demand.

October 2014 – A glass walkway opens with views of the street 187 feet below.

September 20, 2015 – Security officers spot three people climbing the tower. The climbers escape before police arrive and the tower opens after being inspected by an emergency response unit.

November 2015 – The tower is closed for two days following the terror attacks in Paris. When it reopens, it is lit up with the colors of the French flag.

January 13, 2017 – Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo announces a 300 million euro ($318 million) renovation of the tower that will take 15 years to complete and will include increasing security and reducing waiting times for visitors.

February 9, 2017 – It is announced that two glass walls will be erected around the base of the Eiffel Tower. These walls will provide increased security and be more visually appealing than the current metal fencing.

September 18, 2017 – Construction begins on the three meters high glass fence around the North-South viewpoint of the tower. The glass is 65 millimeters thick, resistant to bullets and extra clear.

June 20, 2018 – The tower’s official website announces that the new glass wall is ready to be unveiled.

May 20, 2019 – The tower is closed and evacuated after a man is spotted climbing up the side. The situation lasts just over seven hours before the climber’s capture.

May 21, 2019 – Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo announces a plan to transform the passage connecting Trocadero Square to the tower into a “green corridor” for pedestrians by 2024. It will be the largest public green space in the city.

March 13, 2020 – The tower closes to the public due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

June 25, 2020 – The tower reopens with pandemic restrictions.

October 30, 2020 – The tower closes to the public due to a surge of Covid-19 cases.

July 16, 2021 – The tower reopens after more than eight months with new pandemic restrictions. This is the landmark’s longest closure since World War II.

August 17, 2023 – Police arrest a man for jumping off the tower with a parachute. The incident is the latest in a series of security incidents over the past week at the site. Two American men were discovered on August 14 after spending a drunken night up the tower while the monument was evacuated for several hours over a bomb threat on August 12.

July 10, 2025 – Police arrest two men for jumping off the tower with parachutes. A third individual that did not take part directly in the incident is also arrested.

May 21, 2026 – A piece of the tower’s original staircase goes up for auction. It sells for more than €450,000.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

The world’s oldest president left for a ‘brief stay’ in Europe. He hasn’t returned in two months

By CNN
(CNN) — When Paul Biya won his first presidential election in Cameroon in 1984, Nformi Bime was 23 and still a student.Bime is now 65 and retired from teaching. Biya is 93 – and still president. Last year, he won a disputed eighth term that could keep him in office until he is nearly 100.“The best is yet to come,” Biya said before the election, which his opponents called fraudulent and was marred by deadly clashes between protesters and police.For the past two months, however, the man who has ruled Cameroon since 1982, when as prime minister he assumed power following the resignation of the sitting president, has been thousands of miles away. He left on June 7 for what his office called a “brief private stay in Europe” — now his longest uninterrupted absence from the Central African nation in years.Last week, government spokesman René Emmanuel Sadi told French radio RFI that Biya was in Geneva, Switzerland and was not hospitalized, but did not give more detail on his whereabouts.A president who is rarely seenBiya is Cameroon’s second president since independence in 1960 and one of the world’s longest-serving leaders. He first won office in 1984 under a one-party system, then won six more elections after multiparty politics was introduced.He has spent extended periods abroad during his presidency. But his latest absence has revived questions about his health and who is running the country while he is away.Rumors about Biya’s health and whereabouts have long been part of public life in Cameroon, where he is rarely seen in public. His office has repeatedly had to push back against speculation that he was seriously ill or had died. In 2024, the government banned media discussions about his health, calling them a national security matter.Biya’s long rule also reflects a wider contrast across Africa. The continent has the world’s youngest population, but several countries are still led by aging leaders whose political careers began decades ago, including former liberation figures now governing in a different era.For millions of Cameroonians, Biya is the only president they have ever known.Bime’s children are among them. His oldest is 32, and his youngest is 18.Abit Riassai Acha, a 26-year-old doctoral student and community youth leader at the University of Yaoundé II, belongs to the same generation.“Growing up, President Biya was the only president I knew, so his presidency has been part of my entire experience of Cameroon,” said Acha, who voted for the first time in last year’s presidential election, backing the youthful opposition candidate Samuel Hiram Iyodi, 38.After more than four decades under the same president, questions about his leadership have only grown.“Because this has happened repeatedly over the years, many Cameroonians have become used to it,” Acha said of Biya’s long absences. “But becoming accustomed to something does not necessarily mean that people should stop asking questions about how the country is being governed.”Iyodi, who finished eighth in last year’s presidential election, which several candidates, including one of Biya’s main challengers, were barred from contesting, has called on parliament to ask Cameroon’s Constitutional Council to consider whether Biya’s absence amounts to a vacancy in the presidency. But such a move is unlikely to succeed, given the dominance of Biya’s ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement.Despite being away, Biya has continued to make key decisions from abroad, including a major military reshuffle announced earlier this month. Yet questions about his prolonged stay overseas have left officials publicly assuring Cameroonians that their president is still alive.Government spokesman Sadi dismissed concerns about a power vacuum, telling RFI that “President Paul Biya is alive” and “will soon return.”From hope to frustrationBime is old enough to remember when Biya was the change. He first heard Biya’s name in the 1970s, when he served as secretary-general of the presidency under Cameroon’s first president after independence, Ahmadou Ahidjo. After Ahidjo resigned in 1982, Biya took over.When Biya first appeared on the ballot two years later, Bime saw him as a “representation of hope,” he said. “We believed he was young and dynamic – handsome too. He meant so much to Cameroonians.”Few imagined that the man they saw as a new beginning would remain in power for decades. For his critics, the disappointment is not just about how long Biya has stayed in office, but what they see as his failure to improve the lives of ordinary Cameroonians.Political analyst Collins Molua Ikome, a Cameroonian based in Germany, said he saw some of the country’s problems firsthand when he visited Cameroon in April.“Roads in Cameroon are extremely bad. I even witnessed a fatal accident,” he told CNN.Ikome also pointed to frequent power cuts, corruption and a lack of jobs for young people.Wilson Tamfuh, a public and international law professor at the University of Dschang in West Cameroon, said the country has institutions that can keep the government running when the president delegates responsibilities. Key duties, he said, can be handled by the prime minister, the secretary-general at the presidency and ministers.But the bigger question, Tamfuh said, is whether the government is solving the country’s longstanding problems.“People want the Anglophone crisis resolved, standards of living ameliorated, more good roads, fewer people on the streets with degrees, and more,” he told CNN, referring to the years-long separatist conflict in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions.Whenever Biya eventually leaves office, his successor will inherit a country also facing attacks by Boko Haram militants in the north and deep economic frustration among young people.Healthcare is another concern. Ikome said access to quality healthcare remains out of reach for many Cameroonians.“Life expectancy in the country is below 70 years. However, Biya has far outlived that due to access to medical healthcare abroad, which the ordinary Cameroonian cannot access due to poverty,” Ikome said.The divide is not unique to Cameroon. Across Africa, political elites have often sought healthcare or maintained homes abroad, even as public services at home struggle.For Bime, the question is more personal: Will he live to see another president?After decades of waiting for change, he worries he may not – and that Biya could outlive him and many others who are not part of the country’s elite.“Anytime they have a cold, they run overseas and are taken care of, but the other Cameroonians are dying because of lack of care,” he said.The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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