'Regret That Women Were Excluded': Eiffel Tower Chief to Quit Post After BAPS Visit Fiasco

The tower operating company SETE's internal investigation, according to its statement, called the exclusion of female staff on the day of the Hindu religious group's visit, an 'unacceptable situation.'

The Wire Staff

regret that women were excluded eiffel tower chief to quit post after baps visit fiasco

Images and screengrabs of videos shared by the X accounts of BAPS, showing its team members and the Mahant Swami Maharaj near the Eiffel Tower. Photo: X/@BAPS

New Delhi: In a soup since women staff were made to stay away during a visit by a delegation of the Hindu sect Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha, the chief executive of the company that operates Paris's Eiffel Tower has announced his departure at the end of the year.

Le Monde reports that Société d’Exploitation de la tour Eiffel or SETE's Patrick Branco Ruivo announced his departure through a company statement on September 29.

The BAPS visit triggered a gender-discrimination controversy and a one-day Eiffel Tower shutdown as disgruntled employees striked. SETE promised a management investigation. There was also cross-party political condemnation from France.

SETE's internal investigation, according to its statement on which Le Monde reported, "uncovered a series of malfunctions and failures in the structuring of protocol visits and the organization of the one on September 5, which led to the exclusion of female staff on the day of the visit, an unacceptable situation."

Ruivo noted in a letter to SETE's employees that he did not give any "instructions aimed at excluding or replacing women in the path of this delegation" at any point.

"However, women were indeed excluded during this visit, and I regret that. Thus, in the current context, I realize that my responsibility is engaged, because it is up to me to answer for the functioning of this company," he said. Ruivo has had the position since 2018.

The Paris mayor has acknowledged what he called Ruivo's "responsible decision," according to sources who spoke to Le Monde.

In the SETE press release, Ariel Weil, the outgoing mayor of Paris Centre, said he had requested "the creation of a real protocol service, the implementation of a new series of measures and training in favour of gender equality" .

The Wire has reported on how BAPS is tied closely to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s political brand abroad – he has visited BAPS leaders 18 times in visits abroad over the last 12 years. As scholar Christophe Jaffrelot said in an interview with Karan Thapar, this episode hurts India as the recent pitch for the Indian ‘civilisation’ brand has been about being Hindu, or ‘New India’, which is projected as apparently superior to a plural India or other world civilisations.

This article went live on September thirtieth, two thousand twenty six, at fifty-six minutes past eleven in the morning.

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