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The bridge is 23 metres taller than the Eiffel Tower

A bridge officially designated the tallest in the world is to be inaugurated in southern France -- a spectacular feat of engineering that will carry motorists at 270 metres (885 feet) above the valley of the river Tarn.

Designed by British architect Norman Foster, the Millau motorway viaduct stretches for 2.46 kilometres (1.6 miles) between two plateaux in the Massif Central mountain range and when it opens Thursday will remove one of the country's most notorious traffic bottlenecks.

Built of steel and concrete at a cost of 390 million euros (520 million dollars), the bridge rests on seven pillars, one of which -- dubbed P2 -- climbs to 343 metres above ground level, making it 23 metres higher than the Eiffel Tower.

Like a taut thread pierced by a line of needles, the silhouette dominates the countryside for miles around and has been praised as a classic marriage of aesthetics and science. More than 60,000 people have already paid for tours of the construction site.

"A work of man must fuse with nature. The pillars had to look almost organic, like they had grown from the earth," Foster said.

The viaduct is not only the tallest in the world -- outstripping the 282-metre towers of the Akashi Kaikyo bridge in Japan -- it is also the longest cable-stayed bridge. The Tatara Ohashi bridge in Japan is 1.48 kilometres long.

The highest bridge in the world -- measured by distance from deck to ground level -- remains the Royal Gorge Bridge in Colorado, US which is 320 metres (1,053 feet) above the river Arkansas.

President Jacques Chirac will officially launch the Millau bridge at Tuesday's ceremony, almost exactly three years after work began. Some 3,000 people have been employed by the French construction giant Eiffage, which holds the right to draw a toll for the next 75 years.

The bridge was commissioned in order to open up a new north-south route across central France and relieve pressure from lorry-drivers and tourists bound for the Mediterranean and Spain in the saturated Rhone valley corridor to the east.

Eiffage is predicting an average of 10,000 vehicles per day, with a peak of 25,000 during the summer season when tariffs will be increased. If the bridge proves unexpectedly profitable, the French state has the right to take possession from 2044.

(Agencies)