Eiffel Tower chief to quit after female staff told to stay hidden during Hindu group visit

Patrick Branco Ruivo to leave post after decision contrary to France’s ‘value of equality’ sparked outrage and strike

The head of the operating company that runs the Eiffel Tower is to step down after a row over female staff being ordered to stay out of sight during a visit by a Hindu religious group.

Patrick Branco Ruivo will leave his job at the end of the year, the Eiffel Tower Operating Company (Sete) announced in a statement on Tuesday.

It follows an internal inquiry into why the tower’s management ordered female staff to keep out of sight during a visit by the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS) spiritual movement earlier in September, a decision that sparked a staff strike and caused widespread outrage.

In a statement, Sete said the investigation had “uncovered a series of problems and shortcomings in the planning of official visits and the organisation of the 5 September visit, which led to the exclusion of female staff on the day of the visit”. It added that this had created “an unacceptable situation”.

The exclusion prompted a one-day strike by staff, forcing the monument to close. In a statement at the time, tower employees denounced “workplace policies that have led to female employees being sidelined, replaced and rendered invisible because of their sex”.

“Some were asked to leave their posts and wait in separate rooms. In some posts, women were replaced by men. All female employees were instructed not to pass through or enter certain areas while the [Hindu] delegation was present,” they wrote.

Staff said they were shocked to find themselves in a situation so “deeply contrary to the values of equality and nondiscrimination”.

“The Eiffel Tower is the symbol of France . We believe it must also be exemplary in the values it promotes and the way it treats staff,” they added.

Sete admitted the BAPS delegation had requested that “interactions with women” be limited. It added: “These conditions should not have been accepted.” BAPS has subsequently apologised for “any pain or inconvenience caused” by the incident.

City hall, which oversees the operation of the Paris landmark, also apologised for failing to observe France’s republican principle of equality.

Members of BAPS, which practises a conservative form of Hinduism and described as a sect by critics, visited the Eiffel Tower as part of a weekend of celebrations to mark the inauguration of the group’s first traditional temple in France at Bussy-Saint-Georges, east of Paris. The group said it had made the request because several monks were present, including their spiritual leader, Mahant Swami Maharaj, 93, whose vows forbid any contact with women.

Branco Ruivo, a graduate of the École Nationale d’Administration, the hothouse grande école for France’s political class, now closed, had previously been an adviser to the former Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo on issues related to the modernisation of public services. He was appointed director general of Sete in November 2018.