Eiffel Tower Closes After Women Staff Sidelined During 1 BAPS Visit

Q: Why did Eiffel Tower management secretly agree to replace female staff with men for a VIP tour?

Eiffel Tower management appears to have agreed because the visiting BAPS delegation requested a tour with limited contact with women, and managers chose to accommodate that demand for what was treated as a VIP visit. That is the account given by SETE, the company that operates the Eiffel Tower. It said the delegation asked for the visit to be organised in a way that restricted “interactions with women,” and acknowledged afterward that those conditions should never have been accepted because they conflicted with the site’s equality principles. Staff and union representatives said the result was that some female employees were removed from their posts and replaced by men as the group passed. Why management agreed has not been fully explained publicly, and there is no evidence in the reporting of a broader hidden policy beyond this specific visit. The arrangement seems to have been made to satisfy the visitors’ religious or cultural preferences during a high-profile group tour following the inauguration of the new BAPS temple in France. The secrecy issue comes from the backlash: workers said women were effectively made “invisible because of their sex,” prompting a walkout, political condemnation and the tower’s temporary closure. Paris officials have called the arrangement unacceptable and said an investigation would examine how and why it was approved. BAPS later apologised, saying it took the concerns seriously and did not intend to cause harm.

3 articles · Updated · Al Jazeera English · Sep 8

Monday's strike briefly shut the Eiffel Tower after workers protested orders that female employees step aside, leave posts or be replaced by men during a Saturday BAPS delegation tour.
SETE, which operates the landmark, said it had accepted a request to limit interactions with women and acknowledged those conditions should not have been approved.
BAPS — founded in 1907 and now running more than 1,000 temples and centers worldwide — apologized on X, saying it knew of no denial of access at the site.
French officials across the political spectrum condemned the episode as incompatible with republican gender equality, and Paris Mayor Emmanuel Gregoire said an investigation would be launched.