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Staff at the Eiffel Tower staged a walkout on Monday, forcing the closure of the iconic Parisian landmark after female employees were said to have been moved out of sight during the visit of a Hindu religious group.
The row began after the visit of around 100 people linked to the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS) Hindu movement, which inaugurated a new temple in France over the weekend.
Diane Davoine, a union representative, told French TV that female workers had been “moved away from their workstations as the delegation passed by” during a visit on Saturday.
Eiffel Tower employees have condemned in a statement what they described as “professional instructions that led to female employees being sidelined, replaced and made invisible because of their sex.”
SETE, the company that runs the tower, has acknowledged that the Hindu delegation requested the trip be organised so as to limit “interactions with women,” adding that “these conditions should not have been accepted.”
In a statement released on Monday evening, the BAPS Hindu temple in Paris said it took the concerns raised “very seriously” and apologised for “any pain or inconvenience caused.”
“Due to the size of our delegation, the visit was arranged in conjunction with the Eiffel Tower team at the start of normal opening hours to avoid disrupting or inconveniencing others,” it said.
“To the best of our knowledge, at no point was anyone prevented access to the Eiffel Tower,” it continued, adding that it believed in the “universal values of mutual respect and service.”
In a post on X, Paris Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire said he was “aware of the outcry among the employees of the Eiffel Tower” and that it was “unacceptable” that such conditions were agreed to.
“These are not my values, nor are they the values that the Eiffel Tower should uphold, where everyone must be able to move about and act freely, without distinction between women and men,” he wrote, adding that an investigation into the incident would be launched.
Yaël Braun-Pivet, the president of the National Assembly, has also condemned the incident.
“I refuse to accept that women should be told to step aside to meet the demands of foreign visitors,” she said. “Welcoming others never means giving up our values. In France, women are fully present in public life. No one tells them to become invisible there.”
The Eiffel Tower’s website says the landmark is closed on Monday due to “exceptional circumstances.”
It advises visitors with tickets to check their emails and apologised for the inconvenience.
Additional sources • AFP