Hi,

I answer more as a french than an historian (I like history, but I'm not a specialist), so anyone feel free to correct me.

The Eiffel Tower was a project for the Exposition Universelle of 1889, which was held in Paris. The concept was to show the last technologies available.

Part of the Eiffel tower's inspiration was the Centennial tower project from Clark and Reeves, for the Exposition Universelle of 1876 in Philadelphia.

Now to answer your question :

• in 1889, most frenchs lived in province, not in Paris, and weren't really interested in those things. France was mostly rural at the time.
• However, parisians, and especially intellectuals didn't like change (I summerize).
• So basically, most french didn't care, but those who cared made their concerns public.

On the 14th february 1887, in newspaper Le Temps, Alexandre Dumas (son), Guy de Maupassant, Charles Gounod, Leconte de Lisle, Charles Garnier, Sully Prudhomme and some others published their opinion. I summerize (again), but their concerns were that the Eiffel tower looked like a plant chimney (so something unpleasant, opposed to Paris classic architecture) and that it was too high and would therefore hide all parisians monuments.

Anyway, those people didn't like the idea. But the Eiffel tower was made. And the Exposition Universelle of 1889, and the other in 1900 proved them wrong, as :

• people liked the Eiffel tower
• the Eiffel tower didn't make people forget other monuments

It quickly became a symbol of France's dynamism. I think people like it because it is now something rather historic than futurist, also the view from the second floor is great.