Eiffel Tower shuts for a day after staff say women were hidden from a BAPS visit

The Eiffel Tower stayed shut through 7 September after staff walked out over the treatment of women employees during a private visit on 6 September by about 100 people linked to Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha. Union representative Diane Davoine told Reuters that women were told to leave their posts as the delegation passed so that men could take their places. A staff statement condemned instructions that left women sidelined, replaced and made invisible because of their sex.

SETE, the company that runs the tower, said the delegation had asked for the visit to be organised so as to limit interactions with women, and admitted that these conditions should not have been accepted. SETE president Ariel Weil, who also holds a Socialist office in Paris, told AFP that the company would establish what happened and draw conclusions. Management apologised to staff, Davoine said. Paris mayor Emmanuel Gregoire called the arrangement unacceptable and contrary to the values attached to the tower. He said staff anger was legitimate and that the facts should be put on record.

BAPS was in France for the consecration of its first large temple in the Paris suburbs, held on 7 September, and for a boat procession on the Seine. The group said the tower visit was booked at opening hours to limit disruption because of the size of the party, and that it had coordinated with tower authorities so ordinary visitors would keep access. On Monday evening the BAPS temple in Paris said it took the complaints seriously and apologised for any pain or inconvenience caused.

The tower receives nearly seven million visitors a year. Signs on 7 September blamed operational reasons for the delayed opening. A staff representative said the monument would open as normal on 8 September. City authorities opened an inquiry. Photographs from the day show the usual entrance marked closed while staff met inside.

French equality law does not allow an employer to hide women workers to satisfy a guest. SETE's own statement now concedes that the request should have been refused. That concession matters more than the apology, because it accepts the legal point rather than treating the walkout as a misunderstanding about religion or crowd control.

BAPS is a large Hindu organisation with temples on several continents and political access in New Delhi. French coverage noted the group's proximity to the Bharatiya Janata Party. The legal file in Paris does not turn on that proximity. It turns on whether a municipal company applied a sex-based instruction on a public monument.

The remaining questions are who inside SETE accepted the condition, whether any written instruction exists, and what sanction follows. BAPS has apologised for inconvenience. SETE has apologised to its staff. Neither statement yet names the official who said yes. The inquiry Gregoire asked for is the place that name should appear.