“The Eiffel Tower's iron comes from Algeria”: why this legend costs us more than it serves us — and what is true instead

Jan Verhoeven — Bruxelles, Belgique — 2026-09-15

Method note. We are taking this subject head-on because it is circulating everywhere, and because it concerns us. We rely on a document from 1889 — the very year of the tower —, on named academic and press sources, and on historians' work. And we arrive at a conclusion that will not please everyone, including at home. We write it anyway.

🔥 The thesis in circulation — and where it comes from

The formula is everywhere: “the Eiffel Tower's iron comes from Algeria,” from the Zaccar and Rouina mines near Miliana. Gustave Eiffel supposedly chose them for the purity of their ore. And, to thank the town, he supposedly gave a clock mounted on a metal tower to the school in the village of El Abadia, in Aïn Defla wilaya.

This formula has a precise source, and it must be named: **an article by the French-Algerian outlet BeurFM, published on 2 August 2018**, titled “Did you know? The Eiffel Tower's iron comes from Algeria!”

**And here is what an Algerian site — ObservAlgérie — itself writes about that article, quoting it: the writer asserted it “without providing any proof or citing any source with authority in the field.”**

It is not us saying it. It is an Algerian outlet, about another Algerian outlet. Remember that, because it is the starting point of everything.

✅ What is FALSE among those who deny it — and they need to be told

Let us begin by granting the defenders of the thesis their due, because on one precise point they are right.

One often reads that the Zaccar and Rouina mines did not exist at the time of the tower, because they supposedly opened only in 1904 and 1906. That argument is false.

What dates from 1904 is the industrial company: **the Société des Mines du Zaccar was created in Paris on 22 March 1904, and modern operations began on 7 October 1904, with the tramway that carried the ore down to Miliana-Margueritte station. And what dates from 1906 is the extension of a concession, not the opening of a mine.**

The concession itself, however, is far older. On 16 September 1874, the governor granted a general seventeen-year concession to Messrs Dupin and Allemand. On 5 March 1888, the Giraud brothers, bankers in Oran, obtained its extension until 1 July 1906.

So, between 1887 and 1889 — the years of the tower's construction — the Zaccar mines were in operation, under concession, and ore was being brought up. Whoever claims the contrary is wrong, and wrong about a verifiable date.

🧱 And here is the objection that is fair — and that must be understood

In a first version of this work, we initially wrote that “the tower's iron comes from the Fould-Dupont forges of Pompey, in Lorraine.” That was insufficient, and here is why.

A forge, a foundry, a steelworks — do not produce ore. They transform it. Saying “the iron was made at Pompey” answers the question “where was it worked,” not the question “where was it extracted.” Those are two different questions, and the second is the one that interests us.

So the argument “it is from Lorraine” is not enough, on its own, to settle the matter. One must look for where Fould-Dupont took its ore. And for that, a document from the period is needed.

📄 The 1889 document — the one that must be read

It exists, and it is accessible. **Francis Laur, “Les mines et usines en 1889 : étude complète sur l'Exposition universelle”, page 399 — a work published the very year of the tower. Here is what one reads in it, word for word:**

“NORTH-EASTERN WORKS. All the iron of the Eiffel Tower, 24 types of open and closed angle irons, 7 056 909 kilogrammes in all, were manufactured and delivered by M. Fould Dupont. The Eiffel dismantleable bridges are made of rolled steel from Pompey. […] What characterises M. Fould-Dupont's establishment is that it is almost the only one which, in the Meurthe-et-Moselle basin, takes iron in the state of ore and transforms it completely into products that are often very finished and deliverable to industry. Its establishments are the following: 1° The Ludres iron mine… ”

Let us take this text in three pieces, because each one says something.

First piece: the exact weight. 7 056 909 kilogrammes — a little over seven thousand tonnes. That is the figure of the period, and it is worth more than all the “7 000” or “10 000” that get repeated.

Second piece: Fould-Dupont worked from ore. “It takes iron in the state of ore and transforms it completely.” It is an integrated plant: the mine, then the iron. So the question of the ore is not external to this company — it is at the heart of how it operates.

Third piece, and this is the decisive one: the list of its establishments begins with “1° The Ludres iron mine”. Ludres is a commune in Meurthe-et-Moselle, some ten kilometres south of Nancy. That is where Fould-Dupont extracted its iron.

And it is not an isolated source. The Musée de l'Histoire du fer, at Jarville-la-Malgrange near Nancy, also attributes the tower's iron to the Ludres mine. **And the regional daily L'Est Républicain devoted an article, on 4 May 2014, to “Fould-Dupont, Eiffel's principal supplier”. The forges' maker's plate is, moreover, still sealed to one of the tower's pillars.**

🇩🇿 And an Algerian historian says the same thing

We do not want this investigation to rest on French sources alone. So here is an Algerian source, and it is unsettling.

The Algerian historian Mohammed Salah Boukechour, interviewed by the Al Jazeera channel, also rejected the Algerian origin of the tower's iron. His argument: while France did import Algerian iron in 1885-1889, that ore went to other sites — notably the railways.

We diverge from him on one point of detail: he places the working of Zaccar and Rouina in 1904 and 1906, which corresponds to the joint-stock company and the concession extension, not to the opening of the mines. On the substance of his conclusion, however, our research does not contradict him.

🔀 And there is even a third version

One detail that should make anyone cautious: **in 2021, a journalist at the Algerian daily El Khabar argued that the tower's iron came not from Zaccar, but from the Ouenza mines, at Tébessa, in the east of the country. That is a third origin, incompatible with the other two.**

When the same thesis produces three different locations in three years, it is no longer a thesis: it is an intuition dressed up. And that disqualifies no one — it obliges verification.

⚖️ Our conclusion, and it is clear-cut

We cannot write that the Eiffel Tower's iron is Algerian. We have found no document from the period that says so, and the only contemporary document we found — the one from 1889 — designates the Ludres mine, property of the company that supplied all 7 056 909 kilogrammes.

But we will not write either that Algeria has nothing to do with this story. Because that would be false, and for a more important reason: because Algeria has a real, documented share, and a far heavier one than the one people try to give it.

💪 And here is the TRUE story — the one that is not told

It is there, before our eyes, and it needs no legend.

  • The Société Générale Algérienne is founded in Paris on 18 May 1865, with French and international financiers. Its purpose: to finance mines, infrastructure and the development of land in Algeria. It would become the Compagnie Algérienne, one of the great colonial banks.
  • France did import Algerian iron ore in 1885-1889 — **it is Le Figaro that says so, drawing on its own archives of the period.**
  • The Zaccar mines employed up to 2 000 workers, roughly one worker in four in the town of Miliana. The miners went down there by a ladder, with oil lamps, in galleries propped up in rudimentary fashion.
  • In 1914, around 3 000 Algerian workers were employed in France, according to the estimate of Gérard Noiriel — and more recent work puts forward markedly higher figures.
  • And as early as 1880, French employers called on Algerian workers to break strikes.

That is what is established. Algeria supplied France with ore, money and men — for its railways, for its industry, and for its building sites. This is not an anecdote about a tower: it is an economic balance of power, stretched over decades.

🎯 Why we are publishing this investigation, even if it does not flatter us

Because a journal that publishes a legend loses the right to denounce other people's.

We spend our time demanding dates, sources, documents. We took apart a Moroccan chart by showing that it changed its calculation series. We took the IMF to task over its figures, word for word. If, on a subject that suits us, we settle for an unsourced claim, then everything we have written elsewhere becomes suspect — and this time, rightly so.

And there is a second reason, a simpler one: we do not need this legend. What Algeria gave France is documented, dated, counted. Replacing it with a story that does not hold up is trading a fact for a fable — and losing both.

🎯 The conclusion, in four sentences

The Zaccar mines were indeed in operation during the construction of the Eiffel Tower — the concession dates from 16 September 1874: those who say otherwise are wrong about a verifiable date.

But a forge does not produce the ore it transforms, and the only contemporary document we found, the 1889 one, shows that Fould-Dupont worked from ore extracted from its own Ludres mine, in Meurthe-et-Moselle.

We therefore cannot state that the tower's iron is Algerian — and an Algerian historian, Mohammed Salah Boukechour, says the same thing on Al Jazeera.

But we can state, sources in hand, that French industry was financed, fed and built with money, ore and men from Algeria. It is less pretty than a legend. It is much heavier.

🔗 The sources, in direct access — click and check for yourself

  • The 1889 document: the 7 056 909 kilogrammes, Fould-Dupont working “in the state of ore”, and “the Ludres iron mine” — Francis Laur, Les mines et usines en 1889 : étude complète sur l'Exposition universelle, page 399: https://archive.org/details/lesminesetusine00laurgoog/page/n407
  • The concession of 16 September 1874, its extension of 5 March 1888, the creation of the company in 1904 and the start of operations on 7 October 1904 — Miliana-Margueritte Tramway / Tramway des Mines du Zaccar, sourced encyclopaedic entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miliana-Margueritte_Tramway
  • The original article behind the thesis, and the finding that it cites no source — BeurFM, 2 August 2018: https://www.beurfm.net/news/le-saviez-vous-le-fer-de-la-tour-eiffel-vient-d-algerie-20284 — and the analysis by ObservAlgérie, 21 August 2022: https://observalgerie.com/2022/08/21/societe/origine-fer-tour-eiffel/
  • **The position of the Algerian historian Mohammed Salah Boukechour, and the third version (Ouenza) put forward by a journalist at *El Khabar*** — reported by ObservAlgérie: https://observalgerie.com/2022/08/21/societe/origine-fer-tour-eiffel/
  • The Société Générale Algérienne, founded on 18 May 1865, and its financing of mines and infrastructure in Algeria — sourced encyclopaedic entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soci%C3%A9t%C3%A9_G%C3%A9n%C3%A9rale_Alg%C3%A9rienne
  • Working conditions at the Zaccar mines, the 2 000 workers and “a quarter of the population of Miliana” — Algerie360: https://www.algerie360.com/miliana-nos-ancetres-les-mineurs/

These links open the cited documents directly, with their dates. The first is enough to verify the heart of the case: open page 399 and read the paragraph on the north-eastern works.

Final note. We did not have access to the archives of the Fould-Dupont company, nor to Gustave Eiffel's notebooks, nor to M. Lyonnet du Moutier's book on the financing of the tower. We therefore do not cite them, and we do not present any of their conclusions as our own. If one of these documents establishes that ore from Zaccar went into the tower, we will publish it — and we will say that we were wrong. That is the only tenable position for a journal that asks others to prove what they assert.