Eiffel Tower operator chief to leave after women staff were removed for religious visit
Patrick Branco Ruivo will step down at year-end after an internal inquiry found serious failures in arranging a September visit by the BAPS Hindu movement, a decision that triggered a staff walkout and a daylong closure of the Paris landmark.
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The head of the company operating the Eiffel Tower will leave his post at the end of the year following a controversy over women employees being removed during a visit by a Hindu religious movement. The operator, SETE, announced the departure on Tuesday, saying an internal inquiry found failures in the way the visit was organised.
Patrick Branco Ruivo has served as SETE’s director general since 2018. The company said the inquiry identified “operational flaws and shortcomings” that led to the “unacceptable” removal of women staff. It did not provide further details about the investigation or say whether other disciplinary measures would follow.
The incident occurred on September 5, when members of the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha, known as BAPS, visited the Paris monument. SETE said at the time that the delegation had asked for arrangements that would limit interactions with women. The company acknowledged the request should not have been accepted.
The decision to accommodate the condition prompted a walkout by staff and forced the Eiffel Tower to close for a day. The disruption drew criticism across France’s political spectrum, where the episode touched on widely held commitments to secular public institutions and gender equality.
SETE’s announcement places responsibility on shortcomings in the planning and conduct of the visit, while confirming that the chief executive will depart months after the controversy. The company has not said that Branco Ruivo personally issued the instruction to remove women employees; its statement links the outcome to failures in organising the visit.
BAPS is a Hindu spiritual organisation, and its delegation’s request became the focus of the dispute because it affected how the landmark’s employees were assigned during the visit. SETE’s earlier response accepted that the conditions had been set by the visitors, but said the operator should have rejected them rather than changing staffing arrangements.
The Eiffel Tower is one of Paris’s best-known public attractions and is operated by SETE. Its temporary closure following the walkout underscored how the staffing decision affected both workers and visitors. The company has not announced changes to its visitor or staffing policies, nor provided a timetable for any further action beyond Ruivo’s departure at the end of the year.
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