NEW DELHI: BAPS France on Thursday welcomed the findings of an investigation that found no explicit request from the religious group to remove or exclude female staff during its delegation’s visit to the Eiffel Tower.In a statement, BAPS France reiterated that it had never asked for female employees to be hidden, removed or excluded from the visit.“Following the publication of the official investigation findings concerning our delegation’s visit to the Eiffel Tower, BAPS wishes first to reiterate its concern for the employees affected by the events surrounding the visit,” it said.“From the outset, BAPS has consistently stated that it never asked for female employees to be hidden, removed or excluded. The investigation establishes this fact that BAPS made no such request for women to be excluded along the visitor route. We hope this clarification will contribute to a better understanding of the circumstances and allow everyone involved to move forward respectfully,” it added.The statement comes days after female employees at the Eiffel Tower alleged that they were excluded during a private visit by a BAPS delegation. The allegations led staff to go on strike, following which the Eiffel Tower was closed for a day.What the probe foundAn investigation by the General Inspectorate of the City of Paris found that there had been “no explicit request” from BAPS regarding the removal of female staff.“The initial request brought to the attention of SETE concerned the lack of physical contact between religious figures and women,” the investigation report said.According to the report, employees working at the reception and in customer relations were asked to temporarily leave “during the ascent of part of the delegation to the North pillar”.A cleaning service provider’s employee was then asked to wait until her break, while another female employee was replaced in an elevator during the group’s descent. These actions eventually resulted in female staff being sidelined, according to the report accessed by Le Parisien.The City of Paris’s Inspector General attributed the incident to “an internal process in which a requirement for no contact was progressively translated into the assignment of male staff to various positions, and then extended in its implementation to the point of dismissing or replacing female employees already in place”.“Through word of mouth, the message was distorted,” the probe found.Eiffel Tower chief to step downMeanwhile, the operating firm that runs the Eiffel Tower confirmed that its director general, Patrick Branco Ruivo, will step down by the end of the year.Société d’Exploitation de la tour Eiffel (SETE) said Ruivo would leave his post after an internal investigation found that “operational flaws and shortcomings” in the organisation of the visit had led to female staff being removed from their positions, AFP reported.SETE said in a statement that the failures resulted “in female staff being excluded from the visit that day, an unacceptable situation”.
