Eiffel Tower operator chief to leave after female staff were excluded during visit

Patrick Branco Ruivo, the head of the company that operates the Eiffel Tower in Paris, will leave his post at the end of 2026, the company announced on Tuesday, 29 September. The decision follows an inquiry into a 5 September visit by a Hindu religious group during which female employees were kept out of sight, an episode that prompted a staff strike and temporarily closed the landmark to visitors.

The Eiffel Tower Operating Company, known as SETE, said an inquiry by an independent firm found failures in the planning of official visits and in arrangements for that day. Those failures led to the exclusion of female staff, it said. SETE called the situation unacceptable. The announcement establishes a planned departure for Ruivo; it does not say he has already left.

What SETE found about the 5 September visit

The visiting delegation came from Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha, or BAPS, a Hindu religious movement. According to SETE, the group asked for interactions with women to be limited. The operator has said it should not have accepted those conditions. Its inquiry, as described in the company’s announcement, identified problems with how official visits were planned and how this particular visit was organised.

The Guardian reported that the visit formed part of celebrations surrounding the inauguration of BAPS’s first traditional temple in France, at Bussy-Saint-Georges, east of Paris. The group said several monks attended, including its spiritual leader, Mahant Swami Maharaj, whose vows forbid contact with women. That explanation describes the group’s request; SETE has acknowledged that accepting the conditions was a mistake.

How workers described the exclusion

Tower employees gave a more detailed account of what happened at work. In a statement reported by The Guardian on 8 September, they said some women had been asked to leave their posts and wait in separate rooms. Men replaced women in some positions, they said, and female employees were instructed to avoid certain areas while the delegation was present. These descriptions come from the employees’ statement; SETE’s later account confirms that female staff were excluded.

Employees said the instructions conflicted with the values of equality and nondiscrimination they expected the Eiffel Tower to uphold. Staff staged a one-day strike on 7 September, closing the monument to visitors. It reopened the following day. The closure made the consequences of the arrangements visible beyond the workplace, affecting people who had planned to visit one of Paris’s best-known sites.

BAPS subsequently apologised for any pain or inconvenience caused. In an earlier statement reported by The Guardian, it said that, to its knowledge, nobody had been refused access to the tower. That statement addressed visitor access; the workers’ complaint concerned the instructions given to female employees during the delegation’s visit.

City Hall’s response and the questions still open

Paris City Hall, which oversees the tower’s operation, apologised for failing to observe France’s republican principle of equality, The Guardian reported. Earlier in September, Paris mayor Emmanuel Grégoire called the exclusion unacceptable and promised an investigation. SETE chair Ariel Weil said at the time that he had not known about the conditions granted to the visiting group and reaffirmed the tower’s commitment to gender equality.

The Associated Press reported on Tuesday that Weil had requested measures and training programmes to promote gender equality. The available accounts do not set out a timetable for those measures or provide the independent firm’s full report. They therefore establish the operator’s stated response and the planned leadership change, while leaving the detailed chain of responsibility and implementation of any reforms open.

Ruivo became SETE’s director general at the end of 2018, according to the Associated Press. His announced departure comes after several weeks in which the operator, its staff and City Hall have responded publicly to the September visit. For employees, the central finding is SETE’s acknowledgement that its own visit arrangements led to their exclusion and should not have been accepted.