Employees of the Eiffel Tower Operating Company (Sete) renewed their strike on Thursday for a fourth consecutive day, criticizing their employer for its financial management and targeting the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo.
A meeting is planned for 1 p.m. between the unions and the management of Sete, specified the CGT and FO on site.
Around a hundred employees gathered Thursday morning at the main entrance of the monument to mark in particular their opposition to the fee, according to them too high, that Sete will have to pay to the town hall, owner of the monument, in the amendment to the contract of public service delegation (DSP) which must be presented in May to the Paris Council.
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The employees, in the colors of the two striking unions, CGT and FO, chanted the following slogans:
“Eiffel Tower in danger, fees too high”;
“City management, Eiffel Tower in danger”
or
“The town hall is stuffing itself, sorry Gustave”.
A sign depicted PS mayor Anne Hidalgo milking the Eiffel Tower, presented as a
“cash cow”
of Paris town hall.
The general secretary of the CGT Sophie Binet came to support the strikers.
“It is absolutely necessary that negotiations begin and, visibly, the management of the Eiffel Tower has not understood what negotiating means
,” she declared, asking that the inter-union be able to
“negotiate directly with Paris town hall”
.
The trade unionist asked for a
“reasonable”
fee so that
“the Eiffel Tower has sufficient resources to be able to invest and guarantee maintenance, in particular the works”
.
Even if the inter-union does not report salary demands,
"the Eiffel Tower must also have the means to pay its staff and recruit them"
, she also underlined.
However,
“these unreasonable royalties”
impose
“austerity on staff in terms of recruitment and salaries for all years to come”
, she estimated.
In the days preceding the closure, the Iron Lady had welcomed between 17,000 and 20,000 visitors per day, FO union representative Nada Bzioui told AFP.
The four days of closure therefore represent a potential loss of around 70,000 entries.
Management has not communicated about the cancellations caused by the social movement.
This conflict, which had already led to the closure of the monument on December 27, the hundredth anniversary of the disappearance of Gustave Eiffel, occurs in the middle of the winter school holidays and five months before the Olympic Games (July 26 - August 11).