Eiffel Tower shut after female staff moved for religious visit

The Eiffel Tower was closed by staff striking over allegations that women employees were asked to move out of sight during a visit by a Hindu religious group. The BBC and The Independent both report the closure, with The Independent describing it as discrimination against women employees.

The detail matters: a religious group visiting a secular public monument, and staff allegedly relocated on the basis of sex to accommodate religious norms not French law. The monument is state-owned, and France is a laïque republic - the state does not adjust its operations for religious observance. The principle, established at the Revolution, is that the public sphere belongs to citizens under one law, not to communities under separate accommodations.

The staff union's response - a strike shutting one of the world's most visited sites - suggests the incident cuts against a settled norm. Whether the accommodation was requested by the group or pre-emptively offered by management is not yet reported. That distinction will determine whether this is a visiting delegation importing its own rules or a French institution anticipating and complying with them unprompted. The former is a negotiation; the latter is submission.

The tower is expected to reopen once management addresses the union's concerns. The test will be whether the republic's principle - that women are citizens, not accommodations - reasserts itself or quietly yields. France has faced this question before, over the veil and over separate swimming hours. The answer has usually been no. This time, the question was indoors.