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Eiffel Tower staff walk out after women told to ‘make themselves invisible’ during BAPS Hindu visit

PARIS, Sept 8 — The Eiffel Tower was closed on Monday because of a strike by staff over the removal of female colleagues during a visit by a Hindu religious group, workers and...

Malay MailMalay Mail2026-09-08 08:48查看原文 ↗

在BAPS印度教徒参观期间，有女性被告知要“让自己隐形”，埃菲尔铁塔工作人员因此集体罢工。

The Eiffel Tower was closed due to a strike by staff protesting against the sidelining of female employees during a visit by a Hindu religious group.

Female staff were instructed to make themselves invisible, as requested by the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS).

The Tower's operating company, SETE, acknowledged the error, stating such conditions were against their values and principles of gender equality.

The incident prompted backlash from various French officials, calling for an investigation and reiterating the country's commitment to women's rights.

PARIS, Sept 8 — The Eiffel Tower was closed on Monday because of a strike by staff over the removal of female colleagues during a visit by a Hindu religious group, workers and management said.

The visit came on the same day as a cultural boat procession on the Seine organised by the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS) spiritual movement.

In a statement, Eiffel Tower staff condemned “professional instructions that led to female employees being sidelined, replaced and made invisible because of their sex” during the visit by the delegation.

“Instructions were given to female employees of the Eiffel Tower and to female employees of contractors to make themselves invisible in order to welcome this delegation,” the staff said in their statement, adding they were shocked to have been put in such a situation.

“Some were asked to leave their posts and withdraw to other areas. In some posts they were replaced by men. And all female employees were instructed not to go through or cross certain areas while the delegation was present.”

The operating company that runs the Paris landmark, SETE, acknowledged that the Hindu delegation had requested the visit be organised so as to limit “interactions with women” and said that “these conditions should not have been accepted”.

The conditions “were not in line with SETE’s values, nor with the principles of equality between men and women,” the company said, promising to accept the “consequences”.

“It is clearly not an acceptable practice,” SETE president Ariel Weil, who is also a socialist elected official in Paris, told AFP.

“I restate the Eiffel Tower’s commitment to republican values and to the equality of men and women.”

The French capital’s socialist mayor Emmanuel Gregoire said on X it was “unacceptable” that the Tower management agreed to the delegation’s conditions, and said an investigation would be launched.

Hindu nationalist ties

The Tower, which receives nearly seven million visitors a year according to its website, was closed all day on Monday, but will open as normal on Tuesday according to a staff representative.

BAPS, which is close to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling conservative Hindu nationalist party, consecrated its first major temple in France on Sunday, near Paris.

French Equality Minister Aurore Berge reacted angrily on X.

“In France, we do not ask women to erase themselves. No dogma, no religion is above the laws of the Republic,” she wrote.

Far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen also criticised the incident, saying France would “never accept that women’s presence be ‘limited’”.

Gabriel Attal, a centrist rival to become president, said that “in France, no culture, no belief, no religion, nothing and no one can come and dictate to women what their place should be”. — AFP

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由于员工罢工抗议在印度教宗教团体参观期间女性员工被边缘化，埃菲尔铁塔关闭。

按照 Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS) 的要求，女性工作人员被要求隐身。

该大厦的运营公司 SETE 承认了这一错误，并表示这种做法违背了他们的价值观和性别平等原则。

该事件引发了法国多位官员的强烈反对，他们呼吁进行调查，并重申法国对妇女权利的承诺。

巴黎，9 月 8 日——工人和管理层表示，由于印度教宗教团体参观期间女同事被驱逐，员工举行罢工，埃菲尔铁塔周一关闭。

此次访问恰逢博查桑瓦西·阿克沙尔·普鲁肖塔姆·斯瓦米纳拉扬·桑斯塔（BAPS）精神运动在塞纳河上组织了一场文化游船游行。