Staff at the Eiffel Tower have gone on strike in protest at an instruction given to female employees to make themselves “invisible” during a visit on September 5 by members of a Hindu religious organisation.
Officially the monument’s website reported a “delay” in opening “for operational reasons”, though the closure followed a decision taken by a staff general assembly, according to the French press, which has highlighted that the protest was triggered by the sidelining of women.
The tower stayed shut for the whole of September 7 and was due to reopen at 9.30am the following morning, after a second staff assembly. Denis Vavassori, general secretary of the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT) branch at the monument, said an agreement to govern VIP delegations would be examined in the coming weeks.
The company that runs visits to the Eiffel Tower, the Société d’Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel (SETE), has acknowledged that the Hindu group Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS) asked for “interactions with women” to be limited.
The CGT has denounced “professional instructions that led to female employees being sidelined, replaced and rendered invisible because of their sex”. Staff said some women had been asked to leave their posts and wait out of sight, and that men had replaced them at certain positions.
SETE has said the “conditions” set out by the Hindu group “should not have been accepted” because they are “incompatible with the values of SETE, as well as with the principles of gender equality and neutrality that must govern the organisation of visits to the monument”.
The company said the visit had formed part of a cultural festival tied to the temple opening and to the 2026 France-India year of innovation.
The company met “employees gathered in general assembly to answer their questions” on the morning of September 7 and has proposed “to the trade union organisations that they meet to continue the discussions”.
“SETE fully understands [ … ] the legitimate doubts that this situation raises among its staff,” it said, adding that it would carry out “an exhaustive review of the conditions in which this visit was organised and will adopt all necessary measures”.
It also undertook to strengthen its procedures immediately “so that no request of this nature can in future lead to visiting conditions that breach the principles of equality and neutrality”.
The company said it “deeply regrets this situation and apologises to its staff, as well as to visitors whose visit has been affected”, promising that unused tickets would be refunded.
Paris mayor Emmanuel Grégoire, of the Socialist Party, has said it is “not acceptable that such conditions could be tolerated”, announced an investigation and acknowledged the “legitimate” discontent of staff.
“It is urgent that the full truth be established about the events that led to this mobilisation. Equality between women and men will never stop at the foot of our historic monuments, nor anywhere else in this city. It must apply everywhere, for everyone,” he argued.
Aurore Bergé, the minister for equality between women and men, said on X that no dogma or religion stands above the laws of the Republic. Marine Le Pen, of the National Rally (RN), said France would never accept women’s presence being “limited”, while Bruno Retailleau, president of Les Républicains, said principles were “not for sale”.
BAPS apologised on the evening of September 7, saying it was not aware that anyone had been refused access to the tower. “Given the size of our delegation, the visit was organised in coordination with the Eiffel Tower teams, at the start of normal opening hours, in order to limit any inconvenience to other visitors as far as possible,” it said, offering “sincere apologies” to anyone hurt or troubled by the situation.
The visit to the Eiffel Tower formed part of the events held that weekend to mark the opening of the first temple of traditional architecture built in France by BAPS, at Bussy-Saint-Georges, in the department of Seine-et-Marne, 30km east of Paris.
Presented as the largest Hindu temple built in continental Europe in a traditional style, it was consecrated on September 6 before thousands of worshippers. Founded in 1907 in the Indian state of Gujarat, BAPS claims a worldwide network of more than 1,300 mandirs, or temples, some opened by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Worshippers said the movement’s 93-year-old spiritual leader, Mahant Swami Maharaj, was surrounded only by monks and men at the dawn consecration, which was closed to the press.
