Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS) Hindu monks participate in a non secular ceremony in entrance of the Eiffel Tower earlier than a ceremonial river parade on the river Seine in Paris on September 3, 2026.
| Photograph Credit score: AFP
The Eiffel Tower was closed on Monday (September 7, 2026) due to a strike by employees over the elimination of feminine colleagues throughout a go to by a Hindu non secular group, staff and administration mentioned.
The go to got here on the identical day as a cultural boat procession on the Seine organised by the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS) non secular motion.
In a press release, Eiffel Tower employees condemned “skilled directions that led to feminine workers being sidelined, changed and made invisible due to their intercourse” through the go to by the delegation.
“Directions got to feminine workers of the Eiffel Tower and to feminine workers of contractors to make themselves invisible so as to welcome this delegation,” the employees mentioned of their assertion, including they have been shocked to have been put in such a scenario.
“Some have been requested to go away their posts and withdraw to different areas. In some posts, they have been changed by males. And all feminine workers have been instructed to not undergo or cross sure areas whereas the delegation was current.”
The working firm that runs the Paris landmark, SETE, acknowledged that the Hindu delegation had requested the go to be organised in order to restrict “interactions with ladies” and mentioned that “these situations mustn’t have been accepted”.
The situations “weren’t consistent with SETE’s values, nor with the ideas of equality between women and men,” the corporate mentioned, promising to simply accept the “penalties”.
“It’s clearly not an appropriate observe,” SETE president Ariel Weil, who can also be a socialist elected official in Paris, advised AFP.
“I restate the Eiffel Tower’s dedication to republican values and to the equality of women and men.”
The French capital’s socialist Mayor, Emmanuel Gregoire, mentioned on X that it was “unacceptable” that the Tower administration agreed to the delegation’s situations, and mentioned an investigation could be launched.
BJP ties
The Tower, which receives almost seven million guests a yr in line with its web site, was closed all day on Monday (September 7, 2026), however will open as regular on Tuesday (September 8, 2026) in line with a employees consultant.
BAPS, which is near Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Celebration (BJP), consecrated its first main temple in France on Sunday (September 6, 2026), close to Paris.
French Equality Minister Aurore Berge reacted angrily on X.
“In France, we don’t ask ladies to erase themselves. No dogma, no faith is above the legal guidelines of the Republic,” she wrote.
Far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen additionally criticised the incident, saying France would “by no means settle for that girls’s presence be ‘restricted'”.
Gabriel Attal, a centrist rival to grow to be President, mentioned that “in France, no tradition, no perception, no faith, nothing and nobody can come and dictate to ladies what their place needs to be”.
No time was entry to the Eiffel Tower denied to anybody: BAPS
The BAPS denied the declare that they requested the organisers to “restrict their interplay with ladies” on Tuesday (September 8, 2026). “To our information, at no time was entry to the Eiffel Tower denied to anybody,” the group posted on X. “Nonetheless, we want to provide our honest apologies to anybody who could have been harm or inconvenienced by this example.”
(With AFP inputs)
Revealed – September 08, 2026 04:20 am IST
