Eiffel Tower chief to quit after women staff removed for Hindu group

Women staff at the Eiffel Tower were reportedly moved away from certain areas during a Hindu delegation’s visit to avoid interaction.

Women working at the Eiffel Tower were told to leave their posts and keep away from certain areas so that a visiting Hindu delegation would not have to interact with them. Now the man who ran the monument’s operating company is leaving.

Patrick Branco Ruivo, director general of the Société d’Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel (SETE) since 2018, will go at the end of 2026, the company announced on Tuesday, September 29. The BBC reported the development.

Employees said they were humiliated. A staff union representative said women “were asked to leave their places of work”, while male colleagues took their place. Workers also said female staff were instructed not to cross certain areas while the group was inside.

The delegation of around 100 people, linked to the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS), toured the tower on Saturday, September 5. SETE has admitted that the group asked for the visit to limit “interactions with women”, and that “these conditions should not have been accepted”.

Staff responded with a strike that shut the tower to visitors for a day.

Political outrage

The backlash cut across party lines. National Assembly president Yaël Braun-Pivet said she refused “to allow women to be compelled to step aside in order to meet the demands of foreign visitors”.

Paris Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire, a Socialist, called the decision “absurd, unjust and unacceptable” and ordered two separate investigations. The City of Paris owns 99 per cent of SETE.

Company admits failures

SETE said its own inquiry found “operational flaws and shortcomings” in the way the visit was organised, calling the removal of women staff “unacceptable”.

Chairman Ariel Weil said he had asked for measures and training programmes promoting gender equality. “The coming months will allow us to prepare for the leadership transition under the best possible conditions,” he said.

BAPS apologised earlier this month “for any pain or inconvenience caused”, adding that it believes in “the universal values of mutual respect and service”.

The movement draws on the teachings of Swaminarayan, an 18th-century ascetic, and separates men and women in temple activities and at building entrances. BAPS says the practice was introduced for women’s benefit. Critics argue that keeping women out in the name of religious practice is discriminatory.