French Mayor cites 10-year BAPS track record amid Eiffel Tower row over ‘sidelining’ of women

4 min readUpdated: Sep 13, 2026 10:29 PM IST

Bussy-Saint-Georges Mayor Yann Dubosc has praised BAPS for its transparent engagement with the city and its role in the Esplanade of Religions and Cultures.

Amid the controversy in Paris over the alleged “sidelining” of women staff at the Eiffel Tower during a visit by a Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha’s (BAPS) delegation, Yann Dubosc, Mayor of Bussy-Saint-Georges, backed the organisation’s long history. Highlighting a decade-long relationship grounded in openness, dialogue, and mutual trust, Dubosc pointed to the BAPS’s respectful “conduct and commitment” to community integration.

In a separate address, he said the “unfortunate episode” is unacceptable. “Our France, beyond being secular, is also fiercely attached to the [concept of] equality between women and men.” Dubosc said: “No one can fail to fully support equality between women and men and secularism.”

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What was the BAPS Eiffel Tower controversy?

The mayor’s statements come after the day-long strike by staffers at the Eiffel Tower on Monday. The trade union and the monument workers walked out after women employees were allegedly asked to vacate their workstations, avoid certain areas, or be replaced by male colleagues during a visit by a 100-member BAPS delegation.

After the staff union at the Eiffel said the women felt “humiliated”, BAPS in Paris issued an apology.

The Eiffel Tower’s operating company, Société d’Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel (SETE), said the delegation had requested the visit be organised in such a way as to limit “interactions with women” and acknowledged that “these conditions should not have been accepted”. The company had earlier said such conditions its values did not align with such conditions “nor with the principles of equality between men and women”.

The BAPS Paris temple issued an apology for any distress caused. It said the visit was scheduled early to minimise public disruption and that no access was denied. Paris Mayor Emmanuel Gregoire, National Assembly President Yaël Braun-Pivet, and Gender Equality Minister Aurore Bergé slammed any practice where women are asked to step aside.

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A decade-long ‘cordial’ history

Highlighting the past works of the organisation, Bussy-Saint-Georges Mayor Dubosc pointed to BAPS’s 10-year history in his city, where it recently consecrated its landmark Hindu Mandir at the town’s Esplanade of Religions and Cultures. The esplanade serves as a shared interfaith hub housing two Buddhist pagodas, a synagogue, a mosque, and the new BAPS temple.

Reflecting on past engagements, Mayor Dubosc specifically noted welcoming a delegation of BAPS swamis to the Town Hall in 2023. He described their conduct as consistently “respectful and cordial”, explicitly adding that “at no point was anyone asked to move or leave the premises, including female members of staff”.

Mayor Dubosc also praised the group’s transparency during the development of their temple project. He said that information was openly shared across local press and social media channels during the project’s development. In 2023, BAPS presided over the interfaith body governing the Esplanade, earning praise from neighbouring religious communities, including local Protestant representatives.

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Speaking on the formal probe into the Eiffel Tower incident ordered by the Mayor of Paris, he said: “I renew my satisfaction at having heard the mayor of Paris order the investigation to find out the sequence of events before incriminating anyone. There is no doubt that after this episode, the Paris city hall, which owns 99% of the SETE, will hasten to make public the conclusions.”

“While some invoke secularism without really understanding its meaning or nuances, we must also rejoice in having such a beautiful esplanade, a space of tolerance, sharing, and secularism,” he added.