Eiffel Tower closes after strike over sidelining of female staff during BAPS visit

The Eiffel Tower was closed on Monday, 7 September 2026, after staff went on strike over the alleged sidelining of female workers during a private visit by the BAPS Hindu organisation. 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. 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 French capital's socialist mayor Emmanuel Gregoire said on X it was "unacceptable" that the Tower management agreed to the delegation's conditions.