The Eiffel Tower will get a glass wall built round its base under a plan to provide extra protection against terrorist attacks, a source in the Paris mayor’s office says.

The 324-metre-high structure, which gets about seven million visitors a year, already has protective metal fencing around its base, erected temporarily for the Euro football championship of 2016.

France has been hit by Islamist militant attacks including bombings and shootings in Paris in November 2015 in which 130 people were killed.

Glass panels two-and-a-half metres high would be erected around the base of the tower as an anti-terrorist measure if the plans are approved, the source said.

The project would go before a sites commission and then the environment ministry.

“We have three aims: improve the look, make access easier and strengthen the protection of visitors and staff,” Jean-Francois Martins, a city official, said in a statement.

The cost of the project will be around 20 million euros ($A27.90 million), le Parisien newspaper said.

The paper says the “great iron lady” must be made more secure.