Sept. 7 (UPI) — The Eiffel Tower was closed by an employee strike on Monday after workers reportedly alleged female employees were sidelined by management during a private tour by a Hindu delegation.
The tower was shuttered on Monday for what was initially called “operational reasons” but was later revealed to be a staff strike staged following a private visit by a Hindu religious delegation on Saturday.
The employees told French broadcaster BFMTV that the Hindu monks made a request to SETE, the Eiffel Tower operating company, not to encounter women for religious reasons and that female employees were told to “remain invisible” during the visit.
Eiffel Tower workers said management “explicitly implemented this measure, and the delegation in question went up to the Tower’s third floor accompanied only by male staff,” according to the French newspaper Le Parisien.
“When a delegation of around a hundred people arrived, instructions were issued to female employees of the Eiffel Tower and those working for contractor companies to make themselves invisible in order to welcome the group,” staff members said in a statement to the newspaper.
Others, meanwhile, were allegedly asked by SETE to leave their posts and stay out of sight in back rooms or were replaced by men.
The situation prompted an angry response from Paris Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire, who expressed solidarity with the staffers and called their anger “legitimate.
“It is not acceptable that such conditions can be tolerated. These are neither my values, nor those that the Eiffel Tower should uphold, where everyone — regardless of gender — should be able to move about and act freely, without distinction between women and men,” he said in a statement.
The incident involved the Hindu religious denomination Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha, or BAPS, which over the weekend celebrated the official inauguration of its new, multi-million-dollar temple in Paris amid a 13-day cultural festival in the Ile-de-France region.
BAPS is closely linked to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his conservative Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.
Modi on Sunday joined the Paris celebration with a virtual address in which he said Indian-French relations “have reached new heights. Together with my friend, President [Emmanuel] Macron, both nations are building a special global strategic partnership.”
BAPS Mandir Swaminarayan Hindou de Paris issued a statement Monday in which it said it took the concerns of the workers “very seriously,” but added, “to our knowledge, at no time was access to the Eiffel Tower denied to anyone.
“Nevertheless, we wish to offer our sincere apologies to anyone who may have been hurt or inconvenienced by this situation. We are deeply committed to the universal values of mutual respect and service to others.”
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