Eiffel Tower women staff row prompts Paris probes

Paris Mayor Emmanuel Gregoire ordered two investigations Tuesday into why female staff were sidelined during a visit by the Hindu spiritual movement BAPS to the Eiffel Tower.

The Paris landmark reopened Tuesday morning after a staff walkout closed it on Monday in a dispute over arrangements made for the delegation's Saturday visit.

SETE, the company that operates the Eiffel Tower, acknowledged that the delegation had asked for the visit to be organised in a way that limited “interactions with women”. SETE said those conditions “should not have been accepted”.

Gregoire called the decision to sideline female staff “absurd, unjust and unacceptable”. He said the city of Paris, which he said owns 99 percent of the landmark, would conduct one investigation, while SETE would carry out a separate internal review with an external consultant.

Asked who gave the order, Gregoire said he was beginning to have “some information” but declined to elaborate before the investigations.

Eiffel Tower staff condemned instructions they said caused female employees and female contractors to be sidelined, replaced or made invisible during the visit. They said some women were asked to leave posts, withdraw to other areas or avoid certain areas while the delegation was present, and that some posts were filled by men.

The Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha, known as BAPS, apologised for “any pain or inconvenience caused”. The organisation said on X that, to the best of its knowledge, no one was prevented from entering the Eiffel Tower. It said the visit was arranged with the Eiffel Tower team at the start of normal operating hours because of the delegation's size and to avoid disrupting others.

BAPS opened its first major temple in France near Paris on Sunday, with its 93-year-old spiritual leader Mahant Swami Maharaj consecrating it.

France's gender equality minister, Aurore Berge, criticised the incident, saying: “In France, we do not ask women to erase themselves.” Presidential candidates Marine Le Pen and Gabriel Attal also criticised the arrangements.