The Eiffel Tower closed on Monday after its staff went on strike over the exclusion of female employees during a visit by a prominent Hindu group, drawing criticism from politicians in France.
Women working at the landmark were asked to leave their stations and were replaced by male colleagues while a delegation from the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha group, known as BAPS, visited on Saturday, said Diane Davoine, a spokeswoman for the General Confederation of Labor, a union that represents workers at the tower.
“The employees have been in shock since Saturday,” Ms. Davoine told reporters on Monday. “It’s a humiliating experience for the women, to be made invisible in a public space, even more so at a national symbol like the Eiffel Tower.”
Members of BAPS were in Paris over the weekend for the inauguration of a Hindu temple. The group describes itself as a “spiritual, volunteer-driven fellowship dedicated to improving society” by fostering Hindu values. Its monks take vows of celibacy that prohibit them from speaking to or touching women, according to its website.
The Eiffel Tower’s operating company, Société d’Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel, or SETE, said in a statement on Monday that it had been asked to organize a Hindu spiritual leader’s visit “in a way that limited his interactions with women.”
“These conditions should not have been accepted,” the company added. “They are inconsistent with both the values of the SETE and the principles of gender equality and neutrality that must govern the organization of visits to the monument.”
Ariel Weil, SETE’s president and the mayor of central Paris, said in a social media post on Monday that he understood the workers’ grievances.
“No motive of a religious order could justify a distinction based on gender or any other discriminatory consideration in welcoming the public,” he said.
Laïcité, the French concept of secularism that separates church and state, is an enduring if oft-debated aspect of life in the country.
“In France, we do not ask women to step aside. No dogma, no religion is superior to the laws of the Republic,” Aurore Bergé, France’s minister for equality between women and men, said in a social media post on Monday.
Emmanuel Grégoire, the mayor of Paris, said there would be an investigation into the incident.
The BAPS temple in Paris apologized in a statement posted on Monday night without commenting on the exclusion of female employees. “To the best of our knowledge, at no point was anyone prevented access to the Eiffel Tower,” it said. “Nevertheless, we sincerely apologize for any pain or inconvenience caused.”
The group is known for building sprawling Hindu temples in India and overseas, including in London and Los Angeles. The Swaminarayan Hindu Mandir in Paris, which opened on Sunday, is the first traditional Hindu temple in continental Europe, according to its designer, the French architecture firm Arte Charpentier.
BAPS has ties with Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, who has participated in the group’s events at home and overseas. The group was founded in the 18th century in Gujarat, Mr. Modi’s home state.
“Today, when such a grand temple has been built in France, it will enrich France’s diversity, and it will also energize the cultural relations between India and France,” Mr. Modi said in a video message during the temple’s inauguration on Sunday.
In 2023, BAPS opened a $96 million, 180-acre temple in Robbinsville, N.J. Federal law enforcement agents raided the site in 2021, after workers filed a lawsuit accusing BAPS of recruiting them to the United States and forcing them to work in dangerous conditions.
The temple denied the allegations at the time, saying the workers had come to the United States as volunteers, fulfilling a core part of their faith tradition. The case is pending in the U.S. District Court in New Jersey.
Hari Kumar contributed reporting.
