Paris, September 8 (TNA) The Eiffel Tower was closed to visitors on Monday after staff went on strike over instructions to move female employees away from their workstations and “made invisible” during a private visit by a Hindu religious delegation linked to the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS).
The Société d’Exploitation de la tour Eiffel (SETE), which operates the monument, said in a statement that “instructions were given to female employees of the Eiffel Tower and to female employees of contractors to make themselves invisible to welcome this delegation”.
Some women were asked to leave their posts and withdraw to other areas; at certain points they were replaced by male colleagues, and all female staff were told not to enter or cross specific zones while the group was present, according to union representatives and the staff’s own statement.
The delegation, comprising around 100 people linked to BAPS, visited the tower on Saturday as part of events surrounding the inauguration of a major BAPS Hindu temple in the Paris suburbs, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended. SETE acknowledged that the group had requested the visit be organised to limit “interactions with women”, but admitted, “these conditions should not have been accepted”.
In response, Eiffel Tower employees condemned what they described as “professional instructions that led to female employees being sidelined, replaced and made invisible because of their sex”. The General Confederation of Labour (CGT) union said the move left women “humiliated”, and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced that the city would launch an investigation into the incident.
The tower remained closed through Monday evening as staff held meetings over the controversy and was expected to reopen on Tuesday under normal conditions. BAPS, in a post on X, said its visit was coordinated with tower management at the start of standard opening hours “to prevent any disruption or inconvenience to others”, and added that no one was denied entry to the monument; the group apologised for any inconvenience caused.