Status and first results of the ANTARES neutrino telescope

On 29 May 2008 the ANTARES Neutrino Telescope was complete. Data have been recorded since March 2006, even before the completion, with a partial detector containing increasing numbers of operational lines as time progresses. Details of the detector design and construction are given together with results from the analysis of the first data, which indicate the quality of the detector and its ability to cleanly recognize neutrino events.