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Eiffel Tower Reopens After Strike Over Sidelining of Female Staff During Hindu Group Visit

evening · · thread: Eiffel Tower Closed Following Strike Over Removal of Female Staff for Hindu Delegation

14 sources across 10 countries

Who reported this

  • Scroll.in India · Left · Scroll Media Inc, reader-funded
  • The Indian Express India · Centre · Indian Express Group (Goenka family)
  • Hindustan Times India · Centre-right · HT Media (KK Birla group)
  • Sueddeutsche Zeitung Germany · Centre-left · Sudwestdeutsche Medien Holding
  • Deutsche Welle Germany · Centre · Public · German federal public-law corporation
  • CNN United States · Centre-left · Warner Bros. Discovery
  • Bloomberg United States · Centre · Bloomberg L.P. (Michael Bloomberg)
  • Politico Europe Belgium · Centre · Axel Springer SE
  • Folha de S.Paulo Brazil · Centre · Grupo Folha (Frias family)
  • France 24 France · Centre · Public · France Medias Monde (French state holding)
  • ANSA Italy · Centre · Publisher cooperative
  • Dawn Pakistan · Centre-left · Pakistan Herald Publications (Haroon family)
  • El Pais Spain · Centre-left · Grupo PRISA
  • The Guardian United Kingdom · Centre-left · Scott Trust Limited

What the colours mean

  • Left
  • Centre-left
  • Centre
  • Centre-right
  • Right
  • A hatched block means the outlet is affiliated with, or controlled by, a state.

Political lean describes where an outlet sits within the politics of its own country. It is never a position on a single global scale.

Political lean is comparable inside one country and not across them, which is why the bar groups by country first. Publicly funded broadcasters are not marked as state-linked.

The owner of each outlet is listed as a matter of record, not as a judgement about the outlet.

The Eiffel Tower reopened on Tuesday after a one day strike by employees who protested the removal of female staff during a private visit by a Hindu religious delegation on Saturday, September 5. The delegation was from the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha, known as BAPS, a global organization that recently inaugurated its first major temple in France. The visit coincided with the temple opening, which Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended virtually.

According to union representatives and the operating company, Société d'Exploitation de la tour Eiffel (SETE), female employees were instructed to make themselves invisible, leave their posts, or avoid certain areas to limit interactions with the delegation. Some women were reportedly replaced by men in their roles. SETE acknowledged that the BAPS delegation had requested limited interaction with women and admitted that these conditions should not have been accepted. BAPS issued an apology for any pain or inconvenience caused, though the group stated that no one was denied access to the monument. In a separate statement to CNN, BAPS asserted that the request was not rooted in gender.

French officials across the political spectrum condemned the incident. Paris Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire and SETE president Ariel Weil announced an internal investigation into the matter. Minister for Gender Equality Aurore Bergé and other politicians stated that gender equality is a non negotiable republican value in France. In India, the Ministry of External Affairs described the row as a matter between the entities concerned. Some Indian commentators expressed concern that the incident could damage the credibility of the Hindu religion, while others questioned why the tower management complied with the request.

Outlets with a center left lean emphasized the conflict between the incident and the Enlightenment values of the French Republic, often describing the BAPS group as ultraconservative or regressive. Center right outlets focused more on the specific religious practices of the BAPS sect, noting that strict separation of genders is a feature of the spiritual journey for some of its monks. Center leaning outlets focused primarily on the administrative failure of the tower management and the subsequent political condemnation.

How each side framed it

Left
Emphasized the degrading nature of the demands and the political connections between BAPS and the Indian far right.
Centre-left
Framed the event as a clash between regressive religious demands and French republican values of equality.
Centre
Focused on the administrative failure of management and the official political reactions.
Centre-right
Highlighted the specific religious context of BAPS practices and the reactions within India.

Sources

100% of the statements in this article were traced back to the source articles listed above.