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Paris Panel Backs Adding 72 Women Scientists to Eiffel Tower Frieze

The city's expert commission set selection rules with an upper frieze placement to counter the Matilda effect.

Overview

  • An expert commission delivered its conclusions to Mayor Anne Hidalgo on 5 September 2025 on how to add a matching frieze of women scientists.
  • A proposed list of 72 names is due before the end of 2025 for the mayor’s validation, so the project remains in the planning stage.
  • Selection criteria call for deceased, eminent women in science who lived from 1789 to the present, with a focus on primarily French figures.
  • The panel recommends installing the names above the existing band of 72 men on the first-floor exterior while respecting Gustave Eiffel’s aesthetic choices.
  • Officials frame the initiative as making women’s scientific contributions visible on a municipal monument that originally honored only men in 1889 and whose inscriptions were restored in relief in 1989.