<p class="title">The Eiffel Tower has celebrated its 130th birthday in Paris, with the city marking the anniversary with a light show at the famed monument.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Built for the 1889 World's Fair, the tower -- which soars to 324 metres in height and weighs 7,300 tonnes -- still attracts nearly seven million visitors every year.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Despite calls for its demolition in the years after the exhibition, it soon became the most iconic feature on the Paris skyline and is France's most visited monument.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"The Eiffel Tower is a must," said Laurie, a tourist from Canada.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Christophe Girard, overseeing cultural affairs at Paris's city hall said the recent fire at Notre-Dame Cathedral -- which destroyed its spire and most of its roof -- had awakened people to "the importance of our heritage", and that it "can disappear or be damaged".</p>.<p class="bodytext">The tower was the tallest structure in the world for 41 years until the construction of the Chrysler Building in New York in 1930.</p>.<p class="bodytext">A section of stairs from the tower sold for almost 170,000 euros last year.</p>
<p class="title">The Eiffel Tower has celebrated its 130th birthday in Paris, with the city marking the anniversary with a light show at the famed monument.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Built for the 1889 World's Fair, the tower -- which soars to 324 metres in height and weighs 7,300 tonnes -- still attracts nearly seven million visitors every year.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Despite calls for its demolition in the years after the exhibition, it soon became the most iconic feature on the Paris skyline and is France's most visited monument.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"The Eiffel Tower is a must," said Laurie, a tourist from Canada.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Christophe Girard, overseeing cultural affairs at Paris's city hall said the recent fire at Notre-Dame Cathedral -- which destroyed its spire and most of its roof -- had awakened people to "the importance of our heritage", and that it "can disappear or be damaged".</p>.<p class="bodytext">The tower was the tallest structure in the world for 41 years until the construction of the Chrysler Building in New York in 1930.</p>.<p class="bodytext">A section of stairs from the tower sold for almost 170,000 euros last year.</p>