Paris’ iconic Eiffel Tower, one of the world’s top tourist attractions, was closed on Wednesday on the 100th anniversary of its creator’s death, shrouded in a one-day strike by its staff.
The one-day stoppage was to protest against “the current way it is managed”, the hard-left CGT union said in a statement. The tower’s operator SETE was “headed for disaster”, it said.
Workers, represented by the CGT union, protested against the management running the tower on a business model that was “too ambitious and unsustainable”, alleging inflated visitor estimates and insufficient funding for crucial maintenance and construction.
The union criticized SETE, the tower’s operator, for its ambitious business model, claiming it underestimated construction costs and overestimated future visitor numbers. SETE apologised to visitors, advising those with tickets for Wednesday “to check their email” for updates on their booking.
With Paris’s most famous landmark attracting nearly seven million annual visitors, with around three-quarters being foreigners, as per its website, the CGT argued that basing future budgets on a projected 7.4 million was unrealistic, as “this level has never been reached”.
During the Covid pandemic, these numbers dropped sharply due to closures and travel restrictions, but recovered to 5.9 million in 2022.
