In 1934, the old Montparnasse station located on the edges of the similarly named boulevard, opposite the Rue de Rennes, appeared ill-suited to traffic. The city of Paris planned to reorganize the district and build a new station. But the project, entrusted to Raoul Dautry (who would give his name to the square of the tower), met strong opposition and was cancelled.

In 1956, on the occasion of the adoption of the new master plan for the Paris traffic plan, the Société d'économie mixte pour l'Aménagement du secteur Maine Montparnasse (SEMMAM) was created, as well as the l'Agence pour l'Opération Maine Montparnasse (AOM). Their mission was to redevelop the neighbourhood, which required razing many streets, often dilapidated and unsanitary. The site then occupied up to 8 hectares (20 acres).

In 1958, the first studies of the tower were well launched, but the project was strongly criticized because of the height of the building. A controversy ensued, led by the Minister of Public Works Edgard Pisani, who obtained the support of André Malraux, then Minister of Culture under General de Gaulle which led to slowdowns in the project.

However, the reconstruction of the Montparnasse station a few hundred metres south of the old one and the destruction of the Gare du Maine, which was included in the real estate project of the AOM, a joint agency which brought together the four architects: Urbain Cassan, Eugène Beaudouin and Louis de Hoÿm de Marien, was carried out from June 1966 to the spring of 1969 with the assistance of the architect Jean Saubot.

In 1968, André Malraux granted the building permit for the Tower to the AOM and work began that same year. The project was spearheaded by the American real estate developer Wylie Tuttle, who enlisted a consortium of 17 French insurance companies and seven banks in the $140 million multiple-building project, but later distanced himself from the project until his 2002 obituary revealed that the building was his original "brainchild".

In 1969, the decision to build a shopping centre was finally made, and Georges Pompidou, then President of the Republic, wanted to provide the capital with modern infrastructure. Despite a major controversy, the construction of the tower was started.

For geographer Anne Clerval, this construction symbolizes the service economy of Paris in the 1970s resulting from deindustrialization policies which, from the 1960s, favoured "bypassing by space the most working class strongholds at th…

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The tower is mainly occupied by offices. Various companies and organizations have settled in the tower:
• The International Union of Architects, Axa and MMA insurers, the mining and metallurgy company Eramet, Al Jazeera
• Political parties have used campaign offices, such as François Mitterrand in 1974, the RPR in the late 1970s, Emmanuel Macron's La République En Marche! in 2016, Benoît Hamon since 2018
• Previously Tour Maine-Montparnasse housed the executive management of Accor.
The 56th floor, with its terrace, bars and restaurant, has been used for private or public events. During the 1980s and 1990s, the live National Lottery was cast on TF1 from the 56th floor.

French urban climber Alain Robert scaled the building's exterior glass and steel wall to the top twice, in 1995 and in 2015, both times using no equipment or safety devices. The feat was also undertaken by Polish climber Marcin Banot in 2020 and 2023.