The Torre Eiffel it is still closed due to strike. For the third day the employees of Seventhe company that manages the iconic monument of Paris they did not allow it to be opened. The staff – as confirmed by the two unions, CGT and FO, which represent them, contest the company’s financial management of the structure. “We are determined, and at the same time we have the impression that they are taking us lightly – the delegate of the acronym FO summed up to the France Presse agency, Nada Bzioui. “We are on the third day of closure, and I would be surprised if the Tour reopened tomorrow.”
Negotiations at a standstill
The conflict has been ongoing for several weeks and had as its first effect a one-day strike on 27 December last year, not simply a generic date in the heart of the Christmas holidays, but also the day of centenary of the death of Gustave Eiffel. Yesterday’s negotiations brought no results, the unions’ request to have an interlocutor in the Parisian municipal administration, which holds 99 percent of Sete’s shares, were rejected by the sender.
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The representatives of the approximately 360 employees also ask to be able to consult the amendment to the public service delegation contract (DSP), until 2030, which is perhaps the first object of their dissatisfaction. The amendment, which provides a 20% increase in ticket prices, will have to be validated in May by the Paris Council. The two key points of the dispute are the share that Sete pays to the Municipality and the budget for the works on the rest of the delegation.
Paris municipality “too greedy”
The unions accuse the municipality of having been too greedy with an “exponential increase in its compensation, from 8 to 50 million euros per year”, when the management assures that this amount will decrease by 51 million compared to the initial contract. The Eiffel Tower returned to record record attendance numbers in 2023, 6.3 million visitors, more than in the pre-Covid-19 era, with 6.3 million visitors. But this was not enough to heal the budget of his management, weakened by a deficit of around 120 million euros during the two years of the health crisis (2020 and 2021).