Eiffel Tower Shuts After Women Staff "Sidelined" For Hindu Group's Visit
The Hindu group, which consecrated its first major temple in France on Sunday, near Paris, issued a statement after the protest, saying it respects the concerns raised and takes them seriously.
The Eiffel Tower was closed on Monday due to a strike by staff. The strike was in response to female employees being sidelined, replaced, and made invisible during a visit by a Hindu religious group, Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS), on Saturday. According to the Malay Mail and BBC World, female staff were asked to leave their posts and be replaced by men, and were instructed not to cross certain areas while the delegation was present.
The operating company, Société d'Exploitation de la tour Eiffel (SETE), acknowledged that the Hindu delegation had requested the visit be organised to limit "interactions with women". SETE stated that these conditions "should not have been accepted" as they were not in line with its values or the principles of equality between men and women.
The Hindu group issued a statement saying it respects the concerns raised and takes them seriously, according to NDTV. The staff union representative, Diane Davoine, told Reuters that management had since apologised to workers over the incident.
Brief written by urgent.news from NDTV, Japan Times, Malay Mail, BBC World, Free Malaysia Today — 5 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
