Eiffel Tower Shuts as Staff Protest Sidelining of Women

The Eiffel Tower closed Monday after staff walked out over claims female workers were moved aside during a BAPS Hindu delegation's Saturday visit.

The Eiffel Tower did not open to the public on Monday after employees walked off the job over claims that women had been pushed out of view during a visit by a Hindu religious delegation two days earlier. The monument's operating company, SETE, blamed the shutdown on "exceptional circumstances."

The dispute centres on a Saturday visit by roughly 100 people connected to the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha, better known as BAPS, the movement that had just opened a new temple in France over the weekend. Diane Davoine, a union representative, told French television that female staff were "moved away from their workstations as the delegation passed by."

Workers at the Paris landmark said management had issued directions that pushed women out of sight during the tour. They described the effect as female employees being sidelined, swapped out and rendered invisible purely because of their sex.

SETE confirmed that the visiting group had asked for the tour to be set up in a way that would keep contact with women to a minimum. The operator added that agreeing to those terms had been a mistake and that such conditions should never have been accepted.

BAPS temple offers apology

The BAPS Hindu temple in Paris responded on Monday evening, saying it treated the complaints "very seriously" and offering an apology for any distress or disruption. The temple said the large size of the delegation had prompted staff to schedule the outing with the Eiffel Tower's own team, timed for the start of the day's opening hours so that other visitors would not be held up.

The temple also stated that, as far as it was aware, no one had been barred from entering the monument at any stage. It said the organisation stood by "universal values of mutual respect and service."

French officials call it unacceptable

Paris mayor Emmanuel Gregoire weighed in on X, writing that he had learned of the anger among Eiffel Tower staff and that accepting such arrangements was "unacceptable." He said the terms clashed with his own principles and with what the monument should represent, insisting that everyone must be free to move and work there without any separation of women and men. He announced that an inquiry into what happened would be opened.

National assembly president Yael Braun-Pivet also spoke out against the episode. "I refuse to accept that women should be told to step aside to meet the demands of foreign visitors," she said. She added that hospitality should never come at the cost of the country's principles, noting that women take a full part in French public life and that no one should be asked to disappear from it.

The row broke out just after BAPS inaugurated its first large Hindu temple in France, a milestone for the country's Hindu community. Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the opening of the Swaminarayan temple in Paris on Sunday, praising the ties between India and France and describing the partnership as unusually close because of deep-rooted cultural and political links.

Modi said he hoped the temple would endure for hundreds of years as a marker of shared cooperation and opportunity between the two nations. He added that relations had climbed to new heights in recent years, saying that alongside President Emmanuel Macron the two countries were forging what he called a Special Global Strategic Partnership.

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