On the Eiffel Tower, 72 names of French male scientists, engineers, and mathematicians are engraved in recognition of their contributions. Gustave Eiffel chose this "invocation of science" because of his concern over the protests against the tower, and chose names of those who had distinguished themselves since 1789. The engravings are found on the sides of the tower under the first balcony, in letters about tall, and were originally painted in gold. The engraving was painted over at the beginning of the 20th century and restored in 1986âÂÂ87 by Société Nouvelle d'exploitation de la Tour Eiffel, the company that the city of Paris contracts to operate the Tower. The repainting of 2010âÂÂ11 restored the letters to their original gold colour. There are also names of the engineers who helped build the Tower and design its architecture on a plaque on the top of the Tower, where a laboratory was built as well.
It has been proposed to add the names of 72 leading women to the tower and a list for agreement with the Mayor of Paris was presented in 2026.
The list is split in four parts (one for each side of the tower). The sides have been named after the parts of Paris that each side faces:
In the table below are all the names on the four sides.
The list contains no women. The list has been criticized for excluding the name of Sophie Germain, a noted French mathematician whose work on the theory of elasticity was used in the construction of the tower itself. In 1913, John Augustine Zahm suggested that Germain was excluded because she was a woman.
In 2025, Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo named a commission of experts to analyze the project of inscribing the names of women scientists on the Tower. The commission's report was positive and advocated inscribing the names of 72 female scientists adjacent to those of the 72 male scientists, for full equality. The Association Femmes & Sciences was tasked with preparing a list of scientists to be commemorated. In January 2026, the Association unveiled a proposed list of 72 women scientists from 1789 to the present. The list is awaiting acceptance by the mayor, the Académie des Sciences, the Académie des Technologies and the Académie nationale de médecine.
The suggested women are Denise Albe-Fessard, Yvette Amice, Jeanne Baret, Denise Barthomeuf, Madeleine Brès, Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat, Simonne Caillère, Yvette Cauchois, Edmée Chandon, Marthe Condat, Anita Conti, Eugénie Cotton, Radhia Cousot, Odile Croissant, Marie Curie, Augusta Déjérine, Henriette Delamarre, Georgette Délibrias, Nathalie Demassieux, Rose Dieng, Angélique du Coudray, Louise du Pierry, Henriette Mathieu-Faraggi, Jacqueline Ferrand, Jacqueline Ficini, Rosalind Franklin, Marthe Gautier, Sophie Germain, Jeanne Guiot, Geneviève Guitel, Sébastienne Guyot, Claudine Hermann, Andrée Hoppilliard, Marie-Louise Dubreil-Jacotin, Irène Joliot-Curie, Geneviève Jourdain, Dorothéa Klumpke, Lydie Koch-Miramond, Colette Kreder, Nicole Laroche, Cornélie Lebon-de Brambilla, Yolande Le Calvez, Paulette Libermann, Marianne Grunberg-Manago, Nicole Mangin, Cécile Morette, ÃÂdith Mourier, Ethel Moustacchi, Suzanne Noël, Yvonne Odic, Isabelle Olivieri, Marie-Louise Paris, Marguerite Perey, Claudine Picardet, Alberte Pullman, Pauline Ramart, Lucie Randoin, Alice Recoque, Michelle Schatzman, Anne-Marcelle Schrameck, Marie-Hélène Schwartz, Josiane Serre, Alice Sollier, Hélène Sparrow, Bianca Tchoubar, Marie-Antoinette Tonnelat, Thérèse Tréfouël, Agnès Ullmann, Arlette Vassy, Suzanne Veil, Jeanne Villepreux and Toshiko Yuasa.
Eiffel acknowledged most of the leading French scientists in the field of hydraulic engineering; fourteen of them are listed on the Eiffel Tower. Among those missing are Henri Philibert Gaspard Darcy, whose work did not come into wide use until the 20th century, Antoine Chézy and Joseph Valentin Boussinesq, who was early in his career at the time. The renowned mathematician ÃÂvariste Galois is also absent from the list, as are Joseph Liouville and Charles Hermite, two other famous French mathmaticians.