Paris Eiffel Tower says chief to step down after uproar over removing women staff
The operating company that runs the Eiffel Tower said Tuesday its chief would step down at the end of this year in the wake of a controversy over the removal of women staff during a visit by a Hindu religious group.
In a statement on September 7th, 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.
"Instructions were given to female employees of the Eiffel Tower and to female employees of contractors to make themselves invisible in order to welcome this delegation," the staff said in their statement, adding they were shocked to have been put in such a situation.
"Some were asked to leave their posts and withdraw to other areas. In some posts they were replaced by men. And all female employees were instructed not to go through or cross certain areas while the delegation was present."
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 conditions "were not in line with SETE's values, nor with the principles of equality between men and women," the company said, promising to accept the "consequences".
"It is clearly not an acceptable practice," SETE president Ariel Weil, who is also a socialist elected official in Paris, told AFP. "I restate the Eiffel Tower's commitment to republican values and to the equality of men and women."
