Controversial visit by Hindu religious group BAPS to the Eiffel Tower: employees dismissed according to testimony

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Last weekend in the heart of Paris, it was difficult to miss their colorful float: a Hindu religious group, and an escapade to the Eiffel Tower which turned into a scandal. During the visit, female employees were reportedly pushed aside. So what happened? “L’Œil du 20 Heures” carried out the investigation.

This is an unprecedented testimony. That of the driver of a tower elevator. Last Saturday, she received the order to hand over her post to a man when the Indian delegation arrived. Here is her letter, which was sent to us: "In the morning, the girls were asked to hide when they went up. I was in the cabin. On the talkie, I heard that the delegation was coming down by the elevator. Arriving on the ground, I was asked to get out and it was a man who piloted the elevator. I felt insulted," she says.

An internal email mentions a tailor-made system

Where does the order come from? Who gave the instructions? For two days, there has been radio silence at the Eiffel Tower. But in an internal email that we obtained, the general director of the company operating the tower, Patrick Branco-Ruivo, mentions a tailor-made device requested by the religious. “It is correct that in response to the requests made by the organizers of this particularly exceptional delegation, we tried to adapt the system in terms of the direct points of contact planned on the route,” he wrote. According to our information, it was this same director who welcomed the delegation. Contacted, he did not answer our questions.

So, what exactly were the instructions of this religious group with a very complicated name, also called BAPS? To find out, we went to meet them in Bussy-Saint-Georges, in Seine-et-Marne, in a temple that had just been inaugurated. They claim to have never asked for the exclusion of women. As proof, they gave us a photo taken during their visit. On the second floor of the Eiffel Tower, we can clearly see the monks of the delegation, and indeed, female tourists, but at a good distance from the guru and far from his field of vision. Because in reality, monks must never touch women, nor talk to them or look at them. Not easy, therefore, in an elevator.

“An instrument of power” in India

And this is not the first time that this has caused controversy. During a conference in July 2024 in Calcutta (India), before the arrival of a BAPS monk, an organizer asked the women to leave. “No women, no girls, no female volunteers,” one of them can be heard demanding in a video. But why did you roll out the red carpet for this religious group, which is a minority in India? In reality, there are privileged links between the BAPS and the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. He even recorded a video to welcome their visit to Paris.

“We explain the influence of BAPS in France by the power they have with the Indian government itself. It is an instrument of power which, as a result, has the ear of power,” explains Christophe Jaffrelot, research director at the CNRS, specialist in religions in India.

Faced with the outcry, the Paris town hall announced the opening of two investigations to shed light on this matter.