Eiffel Tower Chief to Resign Over Exclusion of Female Staff

On 29 September, the firm that manages the Eiffel Tower announced that director general Patrick Branco Ruivo would step down before year's end, following an internal review that traced the sidelining of female employees during a Hindu delegation's Paris visit to failures in how the event was handled.¹²⁴

The incident

Female employees were excluded from contact with a delegation from the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS), a worldwide Hindu religious and civic organisation, during a visit to the tower. Sources said workers were instructed to avoid certain zones, with several pulled from their duties and substituted by male colleagues, while directions were also issued for women—including those employed by outside contractors—to stay out of sight.²⁵⁴

The Eiffel Tower Operating Company, known as Sete, said its investigation uncovered problems in the planning of the visit, which took place on 5 September, that led to the exclusion of female staff. Sete acknowledged that a request from the delegation to limit interactions with women should not have been accepted.¹²⁸

Eiffel Tower employees staged a walkout in protest. A union official described the situation as resulting from "unacceptable management instructions," and staff said in a statement that they were subjected to "workplace policies that have led to female employees being sidelined, replaced and rendered invisible because of their sex," calling this "deeply contrary to the values of equality and nondiscrimination."²³¹

Response and resignation

Emmanuel Gregoire, the Socialist mayor overseeing the file, ordered two separate probes into the affair, while Ariel Weil, chair of Sete, called for gender equality measures and training programmes to be introduced at the company. A person close to Gregoire said it was "imperative to prepare for the leadership transition under the best possible conditions and to fully learn from the situation so that such unacceptable incidents cannot happen again."²⁶⁸

Weil said the coming months would allow the company "to prepare for the leadership transition under the best possible conditions." Branco Ruivo, who has led Sete since being appointed director general in November 2018, will remain in post until the end of the year, according to the company.²⁸⁴¹

BAPS issued an apology, offering "sincere apologies to anyone who may have been hurt or inconvenienced by this situation." The organisation also said that "to the best of our knowledge, at no point was anyone prevented from accessing the Eiffel Tower," and noted that, because of the size of its delegation, the visit had been arranged jointly with the Eiffel Tower team.²¹⁷

Context

The BAPS group's presence near Paris coincided with the opening of its inaugural large-scale traditional stone temple on French soil, located in Bussy-Saint-Georges to the east of the city. BAPS is part of the Swaminarayan movement within Hinduism and has ties to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. According to the Guardian, the group's spiritual leader, Mahant Swami Maharaj, observes vows that forbid contact with women, a claim reported by that outlet alone.²⁶³¹

The Eiffel Tower, owned by the City of Paris, draws nearly seven million visitors a year. It was previously shut for six days in February 2024 when employees went on strike over maintenance concerns and pay, according to the Independent.²⁵³