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The Eiffel Tower was closed to visitors on Monday after staff went on strike over the treatment of female employees during a visit by a Hindu religious delegation, according to workers and the landmark’s management.

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

Eiffel Tower employees criticised what they described as instructions that resulted in female workers being removed from positions or replaced by male colleagues during the delegation’s visit. Staff said they were deeply concerned by what they called an attempt to make women “invisible” because of their sex.

Female Staff Asked To Step Aside

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

The workers said female employees of both the Eiffel Tower and contractors had been instructed to make themselves “invisible” while the delegation was being welcomed, reported AFP. Some were reportedly told to leave their posts and move to other areas, while men replaced women at certain positions.

Female employees were also instructed not to pass through or cross particular areas while the delegation was present, according to the statement.

The operating company responsible for the Paris landmark, SETE, acknowledged that the Hindu delegation had requested arrangements intended to limit “interactions with women”. The company said such conditions should not have been accepted.

Eiffel Tower Management Apologises

SETE said the arrangements were inconsistent with its values and with the principle of equality between men and women, adding that it would accept the consequences of the incident.

“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.”

Paris Socialist mayor Emmanuel Gregoire also condemned the decision, describing it as “unacceptable” that the Tower’s management had agreed to the delegation’s conditions. He said an investigation would be launched.

BAPS Temple Inaugurated Near Paris

The Eiffel Tower, which attracts nearly seven million visitors each year, remained closed throughout Monday. A staff representative said it would reopen as normal on Tuesday.

The controversy comes shortly after BAPS consecrated its first major temple in France on Sunday near Paris. The spiritual organisation is close to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling conservative Hindu nationalist party.

The incident prompted strong reactions from French politicians across the political spectrum.

French equality minister Aurore Berge criticised the decision on X, saying: “In France, we do not ask women to erase themselves. No dogma, no religion is above the laws of the Republic.”

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

Centrist politician Gabriel Attal, who is also a potential presidential contender, 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”.