The Eiffel Tower is closed to the public on Wednesday, December 27, due to a strike by its employees, announced the Eiffel Tower Operating Company (SETE) on the monument site. The tower’s employees decided on this one-day strike, organized on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the death of the engineer Gustave Eiffel, “to denounce the current management which is leading the SETE straight into the wall”, said know the CGT in a press release.
The union organization denounces in particular “an [economic] model that is too ambitious and untenable” due to an “underevaluation of the works budgets” of the monument but also an “overevaluation of revenues based on annual attendance objectives of 7 .4 million visitors”, i.e. “attendance levels never before reached”. In 2022, the Eiffel Tower welcomed nearly 5.9 million visitors, according to figures from the operating company, a record since 2019 and the Covid 19 pandemic.
The union warns in particular of the significant increase in the amount of maintenance and restoration work on the monument, which “is drifting in an uncontrolled and unbearable manner for the financial balance of SETE”, estimating the cost of the work to be carried out at 352 million dinars. euros, or “an increase of 128 million euros since 2019”.