The Eiffel Tower remained closed on Monday due to a strike by employees, who said they were they were “shocked” by the removal of female employees during a visit by a delegation from a Hindu religious organization to the famous Parisian landmark on Saturday, according to staff and management.
The delegation’s visit took place on the same day as a cultural event on a boat on the Seine, organized by the Hindu spiritual movement BAPS.
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The organization, which is criticized by some in the Indian diaspora as particularly conservative and nationalistic, inaugurated its first major temple in France on Sunday, in Bissy-Saint-Georges, near Paris.
In a statement, Eiffel Tower staff denounced “workplace policies under which female employees were sidelined, replaced, and rendered invisible because of their gender” during the delegation’s visit.
The Eiffel Tower Operating Company (SETE) acknowledged that the Hindu delegation had requested that the visit be organized in a way that would limit “interactions with women” and admitted that “these conditions should not have been accepted.”
“It is unacceptable that the conditions demanded by the Hindu delegation could have been tolerated,” said Paris’s Socialist Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire, adding that “an investigation will be conducted as soon as possible,” in a post on the X platform.
On Monday, a meeting took place between the staff and management of the Eiffel Tower, while the monument remained closed throughout the day. According to a spokesperson for SETE staff, the Eiffel Tower is expected to resume normal operations on Tuesday morning.
“We will shed light on what happened and draw the appropriate conclusions,” SETE President Ariel Veil told the French Press Agency (AFP).
Source: CNA
