Eiffel Tower Women Staff Row Shows Why Equality Must Not Bend | Column

The Eiffel Tower women staff row is a small story with a large lesson. On 5 September, female employees were asked to leave their posts during a private visit by a Hindu delegation. Male colleagues took their places. This column argues that equality is not a favour to be traded.

The delegation belonged to the religious organisation BAPS and numbered about 100 people. The tower’s operating company, Sete, has now completed an internal investigation. It found operational flaws in how the visit was organised. It called the removal of women staff unacceptable and said the request should never have been accepted.

The Eiffel Tower women staff row in context

Director general Patrick Branco Ruivo will step down by the end of the year. The company will create a protocol department and start equality training. A union representative said women should never be treated this way there again. Paris’s mayor, Emmanuel Gregoire, called the decision absurd, unjust and unacceptable.

Notice who failed here. It was not the visitors as a community. Many groups have customs about who serves them. Asking is not a crime. The failure lies with the institution that said yes.

A public landmark, visited by nearly seven million people a year, belongs to everyone. Its staff are employees with rights. They are not props in someone else’s ceremony.

A humanist test for institutions

Humanism asks a plain question. Would we accept this if the reasons were not religious? If a wealthy client demanded that women leave the room, most people would say no. Adding a religious label should not change the answer.

That is not hostility to faith. Respect for belief and respect for workers can coexist. The tower could have offered a private guide, a tailored route or a separate area. It could have declined politely.

This is the same principle behind our argument for everyday secularism. Neutral rules protect everyone, including believers. They stop any single group from bargaining away another’s dignity.

Ruivo’s departure is a consequence, not a cure. The real fix is a written rule, applied every time. Staff must know their employer will back them.

Fact basis: The National and other reports of 29–30 September 2026, and the Religion Media Centre digest of 30 September. This column is opinion. Read The National’s report.