Eiffel Tower reopens after female staff row

The Eiffel Tower reopened yesterday after staff walked out over the removal of female colleagues during a visit by a Hindu religious group which later apologized.

SETE, the operating company that runs the Paris landmark, acknowledged that the Hindu delegation had requested the visit on Saturday be organized so as to limit “interactions with women” and said that “these conditions should not have been accepted.”

The Eiffel Tower, which says it receives nearly 7 million people a year, reopened yesterday morning, with visitors making their way through security checkpoints at the base.

Pedestrians walk past the Eiffel Tower in Paris yesterday.

Photo: AFP

The monument was closed on Monday, when SETE said it held a meeting between staff and management.

The Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS) spiritual movement apologized for “any pain or inconvenience caused” by the incident.

“To the best of our knowledge, at no point was anyone prevented access to the Eiffel Tower,” the organization wrote on X.

“Due to the size of our delegation, the visit was arranged in conjunction with the Eiffel Tower team at the start of normal operating hours to avoid disrupting or inconveniencing others,” it said.

Eiffel Tower staff condemned “professional instructions that led to female employees being sidelined, replaced and made invisible because of their sex” 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 a statement, adding that they were shocked to have been put in such a situation.

“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,” they said.

BAPS, which is close to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling conservative Hindu nationalist party, opened its first major temple in France on Sunday, near Paris.

BAPS spiritual leader Mahant Swami Maharaj, 93, consecrated it himself.

The BAPS claims a worldwide network of more than 1,300 temples, some of which have been inaugurated by Modi himself.

French Minister Delegate for Equality between Women and Men and for the Fight against Discriminations Aurore Berge voiced indignation after the Eiffel Tower incident.

“In France, we do not ask women to erase themselves,” she said.

Candidates in next year’s presidential election also weighed in.

Far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen also criticized the incident, saying France would “never accept that women’s presence be ‘limited’.”

Gabriel Attal, a centrist rival to become head of state, said: “In France, no culture, no belief, no religion, nothing and no one can come and dictate to women what their place should be.”