Eiffel Tower Reopens After Staff Strike Over Removal of Female Workers for Hindu Delegation's Visit

The Eiffel Tower reopened Tuesday morning after a one-day closure triggered by a staff walkout over how female employees were treated during a private visit by a Hindu religious group over the weekend.

According to staff union representative Diane Davoine, speaking to Reuters, roughly 100 people linked to the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS) visited the monument Saturday. Women working at the tower "were asked to leave their places of work in order to place men there," Davoine said, and were left feeling "humiliated."

Staff and the CGT union said in a joint statement, reported by The Independent, that female employees were also barred from crossing certain areas while the delegation was present. They called it "professional instructions that led to female employees being sidelined, replaced and made invisible on the basis of their sex."

The tower shut down Monday as workers met to confront management. It reopened Tuesday, with an AFP journalist on scene describing visitors passing through security checkpoints shortly before 9:30 a.m., according to Al Jazeera.

The Company Owns the Mistake

Société d'Exploitation de la tour Eiffel (SETE), which runs the landmark, confirmed the BAPS delegation had asked for "limited interactions with women" during the visit and admitted the request never should have been granted, telling AFP the conditions were "not in line with SETE's values, nor with the principle of equality between men and women."

Ariel Weil, SETE's president and mayor of Paris Centre, told French broadcaster Franceinfo the company's own managers were "a bit overzealous" in complying without stopping to ask whether the request was appropriate. He called the incident "totally shocking and unacceptable" and said an internal investigation is underway to identify who authorized the change in protocol, with results expected within days.

Paris Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire said the employees' anger was "legitimate" and promised an investigation "as quickly as possible," writing on social media that "equality between women and men will never stop at the foot of our historical monuments."

The reaction cut across France's political divide. Yaël Braun-Pivet, president of the National Assembly and a member of President Macron's centrist camp, wrote that she "refuse[s] to allow women to be compelled to step aside in order to meet the demands of foreign visitors." National Rally leader Marine Le Pen, who has announced a 2027 presidential run, posted a nearly identical sentiment: "In France, we will never accept that the presence of women be 'limited.'" Both politicians converged on the same equal-treatment principle despite their disagreements on almost everything else.

BAPS's Response

BAPS said in a statement on X that the visit was "arranged in conjunction with the Eiffel Tower team at the start of normal opening hours to avoid disrupting or inconveniencing others" given the delegation's size, and that "to the best of our knowledge, at no point was anyone prevented access to the Eiffel Tower." The group apologized "for any pain or inconvenience caused" and said it is "deeply committed to the universal values of mutual respect and service to others."

BAPS sadhus, or monks, practice celibacy and are barred from touching or speaking with women as part of their religious discipline. This restriction applies specifically to sadhus rather than to the broader delegation or lay followers. Whatever internal rules BAPS monks observe voluntarily is their business, but a private landmark reassigning its own female employees to accommodate a visitor's preference is a different question entirely. SETE itself concedes it got wrong.

BAPS consecrated its first major temple in France on Sunday, a day after the Eiffel Tower visit, an event Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed by video, calling it a "new milestone in cultural relations between India and France," according to CBS News. CBS also noted a 2021 U.S. lawsuit accusing BAPS of trafficking low-caste workers from India to build temples in New Jersey and elsewhere under poor conditions. The group has not been convicted of these allegations, which are unrelated to the Eiffel Tower incident, but add context to scrutiny the organization already faces.

What remains unresolved is who inside SETE approved the arrangement before it reached Weil's desk, and whether that person faces any consequence. Weil says an answer is coming "in the coming days." No French regulator or prosecutor has opened a legal inquiry as of Tuesday. The investigation so far is internal to the company that runs the tower.