Staff at the Eiffel Tower in Paris have initiated a strike following allegations that female employees were escorted off the premises during a recent visit by a Hindu religious group. This incident occurred during a private event last week involving around 100 members of BAPS (Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha), who were in France for the inauguration of a temple in the suburbs of Paris. Both workers and management have confirmed the strike, highlighting concerns over the treatment of staff during the delegation’s visit.
The Hindu group, which consecrated its first major temple in France on Sunday, near Paris, issued a statement after the protest, saying it respects the concerns raised and takes them seriously. The Tower, which receives nearly seven million visitors a year according to its website, was closed all day on Monday but will open as normal on Tuesday, according to a staff representative. “Some were asked to leave their posts and withdraw to other areas. In some posts they were replaced by men. And all female employees were instructed not to go through or cross certain areas while the delegation was present. “It is clearly not an acceptable practice. “Given the size of our delegation, the visit was organised in coordination with the Eiffel Tower teams at the start of normal opening hours in order to limit as much as possible any disruption for other visitors. To our knowledge, at no time was access to the Eiffel Tower denied to anyone,” the statement read. “Nevertheless, we wish to offer our sincere apologies to anyone who may have been hurt or inconvenienced by this situation. We are deeply committed to the universal values of mutual respect and service to others,” it added.
In a statement, Eiffel Tower staff condemned “professional instructions that led to female employees being sidelined, replaced, and rendered invisible based on their gender” during the visit by the delegation. “Instructions were given to female employees of the Eiffel Tower and to female employees of contractors to make themselves invisible in order to welcome this delegation,” the staff said in their statement, adding they were shocked to have been put in such a situation. AFP SETE, the operating company that runs the Paris landmark, acknowledged that the Hindu delegation had requested the visit be organised to limit “interactions with women” and said that “these conditions should not have been accepted. The conditions “were not in line with SETE’s values, nor with the principles of equality between men and women,” the company said, promising to accept the “consequences. I restate the Eiffel Tower’s commitment to republican values and to the equality of men and women,” SETE president Ariel Weil, who is also a socialist elected official in Paris, told news agency AFP. Far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen also criticised the incident, saying France would “never accept that women’s presence be ‘limited.'” Gabriel Attal, a centrist rival to become president, said that “in France, no culture, no belief, no religion, nothing, and no one can come and dictate to women what their place should be.
Investigation Initiated Following Employee Protests in Paris
Paris Mayor Emmanuel Gregoire announced that an investigation into the recent employee protests will commence “as soon as possible.” He acknowledged the anger felt by the employees and deemed their dissatisfaction as legitimate. Gregoire emphasized the need to clarify the events that triggered the protests, stating, “It is urgent that all light be shed on the facts that led to this protest.”
French Equality Minister Aurore Berge also expressed her outrage on social media platform X, asserting, “In France, we do not ask women to erase themselves. No dogma, no religion is above the laws of the Republic.”
