Eiffel Tower probe finds ‘no explicit request’ from BAPS delegation to remove female staff
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "Eiffel Tower probe finds ‘no explicit request’ from BAPS delegation to remove female staff")
SETE said its director general Patrick Branco Ruivo will leave his post. Photograph: (AFP)
The probe found that there had been no explicit request by BAPS for the removal of female staff, but women employees were sidelined owing to a message distorted through word-of-mouth communication. The request was for ensuring no physical contact between religious figures and women.
A probe into the allegations of female staff being removed from the Eiffel Tower during a BAPS visit has found that the delegation did not make any such “explicit request”. Last month, female staff at the landmark had alleged that they were excluded during a visit by a delegation of Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha. The staff even went on strike, following which the Eiffel Tower was shut for a day. The Hindu group had denied the charge.
The findings came after a probe by the General Inspectorate of the City of Paris (IGVP) and were reported by Le Parisien.
‘Message distorted through word-of-mouth’
The probe found that there had been “no explicit request” by BAPS regarding the removal of female staff, but women employees were sidelined owing to a message distorted through word-of-mouth communication.
“The initial request brought to the attention of SETE concerned the lack of physical contact between religious figures and women,” the report said.
However, on the day of the BAPS visit, security posts were assigned “that very morning” to men, including the posts of the agents in charge and at the exit of the elevators.
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The report further said that the employees at the reception and in charge of customer relations were asked to temporarily leave “during the ascent of part of the delegation to the North pillar.” A cleaning service provider’s employee had to wait for her break, and another employee was replaced in an elevator during the group’s descent, eventually leading to the female staff being sidelined, said the report accessed by Le Parisien.
The findings attribute this to “an internal process in which a requirement for no contact was progressively translated into the assignment of male staff to various positions and then extended in its implementation to the point of dismissing or replacing female employees already in place.”
“Through word of mouth, the message was distorted,” it said.
Eiffel Tower chief to step down
The communication failure has, however, resulted in significant repercussions, with the operating firm that runs the Eiffel Tower confirming that its chief will step down by the end of the year.
The firm named Société d’Exploitation de la tour Eiffel (SETE) said that its director general Patrick Branco Ruivo will leave his post after an internal probe revealed that “operational flaws and shortcomings” in organising the visit led to the removal of women staff.
Ruivo has served as the director general of SETE since the end of 2018.
