OAN’s Elizabeth Volberding
4:18 PM – Wednesday, December 27, 2023
The Eiffel Tower has been shut down to the public due to staff going on strike on the 100th anniversary of the death of its inventor, Gustave Eiffel.
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On the 100th anniversary of Gustave Eiffel’s death, employees went on strike ahead of contract negotiations with the city of Paris, which prompted the closure of the Eiffel Tower to the general public.
The monument was closed on Wednesday and it remains unknown when it will open again.
Frustrated tourists who previously bought tickets to enter the 134-year-old tower were notified about the closure and will be alerted through email about their bookings and when they can reschedule.
The strike was launched by the left-wing General Confederation of Labour (CGT) union before contract negotiations with the City Hall of Paris, which owns the monument.
The union announced that they were demonstrating “the current way it is managed” and also mentioned that its manager was “headed for disaster.”
Tourists still have the ability to enter the glass-enclosed waterfront under the tower, however, entry into the 984-foot landmark has been shut down until further notice.
The operating company, SETE, has been accused by union leaders of “heading for disaster” due to its “too ambitious and unsustainable” business model, which is based on an overly-optimistic projection of future ticket sales revenue and an underestimate of the skyrocketing costs of maintenance and repairs.
The CGT stated that management said that the business model was predicated on an “inflated estimate of future visitor numbers” and underestimating construction costs.
Approximately 800 employees work at the Eiffel Tower every day and 6,000,000 visitors attend the famous structure every year. According to the organization that operates the tower, SETE, this makes the site the “most visited ticketed monument in the world.”
Gustave Eiffel was 91-years-old when he died on December 27th, 1923. He was an ideological entrepreneur and intelligent structural engineer who, when approached to create a symbol of French industrial savoir-faire for the 1889 Universal Exhibition, had just finished working with Eugène Viollet-le-Duc of Notre Dame Cathedral to build an iron and steel skeleton for the Statue of Liberty in New York.
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