New Year show will turn Eiffel Tower blue

For its next trick, the Eiffel Tower will turn blue. The Paris landmark - whose firework display stole the show on Millennium Eve a year ago - will try to repeat its triumph this weekend by shimmering with blue lights at midnight on 31 December.

For its next trick, the Eiffel Tower will turn blue. The Paris landmark - whose firework display stole the show on Millennium Eve a year ago - will try to repeat its triumph this weekend by shimmering with blue lights at midnight on 31 December.

Forty mountain-climbers and pot-holers have been scaling the tower this week putting blue covers on the 20,000 lights fitted for the year 2000 celebrations. The lights have sparkled for the first 10 minutes of each hour at night for the past year. They were to have come down next month, but after requests by Parisians and tourists the city has agreed they can stay indefinitely.

To create a new spectacle for 2001 the lights will be turned a deep azure blue. The climbers began covering each one on Wednesday night. Abseiling down, they should finish by Sunday. The shimmering blue effect will first be seen at 10 minutes past midnight on 1 January, after the traditional New Year fireworks. The lights will be blue for a few weeks before reverting to silver-white.

The tower's other millennium feature - a sweeping light-house beam - will also now remain indefinitely.