France investigates removal of female Eiffel Tower staff for Hindu group's visit

Female employees at Paris's Eiffel Tower were taken off duty for a private visit by a Hindu religious group, leading to a staff strike and Monday closure at the iconic landmark. Eiffel Tower staff union representative Diane Davoine told Reuters a group of 100 or so people linked to the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha Hindu group, also known as BAPS, visited the site on Saturday, and "women were asked to leave their places of work in order to place men there.""That absolutely does not go down well with the employees, with women obviously, who are all humiliated by what happened, by the way some were treated," Davoine said, adding management had repeatedly apologized for what happened.Speaking Monday, with the monument closed, she said: "Tensions mounted over the weekend, so this morning, the employees decided to meet: first, to open a dialogue with management, and second, to ensure that women are never treated this way at the company again."Paris Mayor Emmanuel Gregoire said Monday the employees' "dissatisfaction is legitimate," adding an investigation would be launched "as quickly as possible.""It is not acceptable that such conditions can be tolerated," he said in a post on X. "Equality between women and men will never stop at the foot of our historical monuments, nor anywhere in this city. It must be applied everywhere, for everyone."The Société d'Exploitation de la tour Eiffel, which runs the tower, told the AFP news agency that the BAPS delegation had asked for their visit to have limited "interactions with women," adding, "These conditions should not have been accepted." BAPS sadhus, or monks, are not only sworn to celibacy but also prohibited from having contact with women. Though, this only applies to sadhus, not all followers of the religion.

BAPS is a Hindu denomination seen as having a close relationship with India Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ruling BJP party. A 2021 lawsuit accused the group of trafficking low-caste workers from India to work in dire conditions and for paltry pay on temples in the U.S., including in New Jersey, California, Texas, Georgia and Illinois. Workers believe two of their colleagues died from a preventable lung disease caused by inhaling silica dust while working on the New Jersey temple, the largest such building outside of India.

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Diane Davoine, a representative for the CGT union, told Reuters and The Associated Press that women were instructed to leave their regular workstations so that men could take their places. According to statements released by the Eiffel Tower staff, female employees of both SETE and third-party contractors were told to make themselves invisible as the group of roughly 100 people moved through the structure. Some women were ordered to withdraw entirely to separate areas, others were swapped out for male colleagues, and all female employees were barred from crossing specific zones while the delegation was present.

Davoine noted that the staff, who are routinely accustomed to accommodating high-security state visits and prominent public figures, found the gender-segregated directives uniquely humiliating. Tensions boiled over across the weekend, culminating in Monday morning assemblies where workers demanded immediate accountability from management to guarantee that female personnel would never be subjected to such treatment again.

SETE management issued repeated apologies to the workforce as the walkout solidified, admitting through statements to Agence France-Presse that the visiting delegation had explicitly asked for limited interactions with women and acknowledging directly: These conditions should not have been accepted.

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BAPS representatives, who were in France for festivities surrounding the inauguration of the BAPS Swaminarayan Hindu Mandir in Bussy-Saint-Georges, maintained that the visit had been arranged at the start of normal opening hours specifically to accommodate the size of the delegation and minimize disruption to other tourists. In a written statement emailed to The Associated Press, the group asserted that the coordination was never, at any point, intended as a request rooted in gender, and any suggestion to the contrary does not reflect the spirit or values of our fellowship or the delegation.

The organization further stated that, to the best of its knowledge, access to the tower was never denied to anyone. BAPS issued a public statement on X offering sincere apologies to anyone who may have been hurt or inconvenienced by the situation, though it stopped short of directly addressing whether it had asked for female staff to be removed from their posts. BAPS sadhus, or monks, are sworn to celibacy and prohibited from having contact with women, though that strict rule applies to monastic members rather than all lay followers of the global denomination. BAPS is widely noted for its close ties to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and its recent French events included a major cultural boat procession on the River Seine and a video-link inauguration address delivered by Modi. Additionally, a 2021 lawsuit accused the group of trafficking low-caste workers from India to work in dire conditions and for paltry pay on temples in the U.S., including in New Jersey, California, Texas, Georgia, and Illinois, where workers believe two colleagues died from a preventable lung disease caused by inhaling silica dust.

France's centre-right prime minister, Gabriel Attal, said in a post on X Monday that "in France, no culture, no belief, no worship, nothing nor anyone can come dictate to women their place."