Marie Curie and Suzanne Veil, among the 72 scientists whose names will adorn the Eiffel Tower

Paris.- The names of the Franco-Polish chemist Marie Curie and the French chemical engineer Suzanne Veil are two of the 72 names of female scientists that will adorn a strip of the Eiffel Tower "by 2027 at the latest".

In a presentation of the list of selected female scientists in Paris, the mayor of the city, Anne Hidalgo, considered that the initiative allows to "repair, in a certain way, the voluntary invisibility of women in the history of science", and that it should materialize "in 2027, at the latest". "These 72 names are also a way of repairing history and a message to our youth, especially to our daughters and girls," added Hidalgo, who was the first woman to hold the mayoralty of Paris and will leave office this year. With this project, carried out together with the Société d'Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel (SETE) and the 'Women and Science' association, the names of French scientists will be visible from the outside and will have the same design as that of the 72 learned compatriots who already occupied a strip of the tower since 1889, in golden letters of 60 centimeters. Furthermore, this initiative, started by a group of students and associations - including 'Women and Science', dedicated to "the promotion and valorization of scientific and technical careers for girls and women" - received the support of institutions such as the Academy of Sciences and university centers such as the Paris Observatory, the Sorbonne, and Sciences Po. In statements to EFE, the president of SETE, Jean-François Martins, opined that the proposal will "correct a great absence that has lasted since 1889, the year the Eiffel Tower was inaugurated", and turn the monument into "a symbol of science and equality".

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"For a year we have been working with a commission to resolve how to give them a place and which women could be the ones to be re-legitimized, and we have found the way: to put as many men as women," explained Martins. To restore the place of women in French science, the commission decided, after eight working meetings between May and August, to reproduce the selection criteria used in 1899, which have allowed the selection of only those who have already died, hold French nationality and have names of up to 12 letters. The vice president of the 'Women and Science' association, Isabelle Vauglin, assured EFE that they finally received a proposal of "more than a hundred names", which "made the selection relatively easy" down to the "last fifteen or twenty". "It was very complicated, and for the last fifteen or twenty, it had to be very well justified that they were in the Eiffel Tower to be ahead of the others, because there were only 72 spaces," said Vauglin.

Women scientists from various countries

The initiative has included women from various countries who, due to their scientific or technical background, showed important ties with France, such as the computer scientist Rose Dieng -born in Senegal-, or Toshiko Yuasa, a native of Japan, although there are no women of Hispanic origin. In addition, those women who, through their contributions in various fields of science, contributed notably to the two world wars on the French side were taken into account, such as the chemical engineer Suzanne Veil, who provided radiology services on the front alongside the Curie family during the First World War, or the doctor Nicole Mangin, the only woman to serve as such during that conflict. In this way, the names of women who were crucial in the development of French science - including two Nobel Prize winners, Marie Curie and her daughter, Irène Joliot-Curie - will share space with other great scientific celebrities from this country, such as Ampère, Becquerel, Daguerre, Lagrange or Laplace.