Solidarity with CGT and the Workers at the Eiffel Tower - Statement from NTUI

New Trade Union Initiative

[Press Statement]

September 19, 2026

The New Trade Union Initiative extends its solidarity to our comrades at the CGT and the workers at the Eiffel Tower who staged a spontaneous strike to protect the dignity, equality and rights of women workers.

The courage of the workers in refusing to accept the humiliation and invisibilising of their women colleagues is a testimony of what trade unionism is all about. There is no room in the workplace to negotiate away discrimination. Women workers can neither be removed from their workplace and replaced by men nor instructed to hide because their presence is deemed unacceptable to a visiting client or religious delegation.

We strongly condemn the conduct of Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS). The demand that women workers should be kept out of sight is not merely a matter of preference. No religious practice can be imposed upon workers in a workplace. When it is done then the question of workers’ rights, equality and dignity come to the fore. BAPS actions are reflective of the misogyny and patriarchy built into its degenerate philosophy of sectarian religious nationalism. BAPS has a long history of violence against workers including of forced labour and torture.

We also condemn Société d’Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel (SETE), the private contractor that runs the Eiffel Tower, which agreed to women workers being removed from their positions and replaced by male colleagues.
Discrimination can never be subcontracted. No commercial assumptions, prestigious client or religious convictions can be used to justify putting workers, because of their sex, at the receiving end of discrimination.

The response of the Government of India is equally unacceptable. The Ministry of External Affairs has sought to wash its hands of the matter by declaring it to be ” between the entities concerned”. Such studied indifference is difficult to reconcile with the public association that the Prime Minister, the BJP and the RSS have repeatedly maintained with BAPS. BAPS’ congregation primarily represents a historically socially and economically advantaged caste group is rooted in two centuries of Hindu revivalism rooted in caste assertion and patriarchy. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, from whose home state of Gujarat BAPS comes from, had himself addressed the inauguration of the BAPS temple near Paris, congratulating the organisation only days before this incident. Silence in the face of discrimination, against women workers cannot be justified as neutrality. Such silence is complicity.

The working class movement does not recognise neutrality. When the dignity and equality of women workers are attacked trade unions have a duty to speak up irrespective of the identity, wealth, influence or religious affiliation of those perpetuating the attack.

The Eiffel Tower is a symbol of France. The struggle of its workers represents something much larger: the universal principle that no worker should be made invisible because she is a woman.
The members of the CGT have reminded us that equality is not a mere slogan. It is defended in the workplace and through solidarity.

We salute their action.

Gautam Mody
General Secretary

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