The Eiffel Tower closed its doors to visitors on Wednesday due to a strike over contract negotiations, the day the Parisian monument commemorates the 100th anniversary of the death of its creator, Gustave Eiffel.
The monument, which is one of the most visited in the world, is usually open 365 days a year – although it occasionally suffers work stoppages – and is expected to play a central role in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Some tourists were visibly dismayed to see a large sign under its iron facade announcing the closure in several languages and apologizing for the inconvenience. Others took photos anyway or changed their plans for Paris.
Tourists can still access the glassed-in esplanade beneath the tower, but access to the 300-meter (984-foot) tall monument is closed until further notice, according to a spokesman for the Eiffel Tower. Stephane Dieu of the CGT union said it was scheduled to reopen Thursday.
The strike was declared ahead of contract negotiations scheduled for next month with the city of Paris, which owns the 134-year-old monument, said a spokesman for the company that manages the tower, SETE.
Unions say the tower’s 400 workers are concerned about the monument’s long-term prospects.
“We had COVID. We lost a year’s income. We have huge debts,” Dieu told The Associated Press. “The tower is more than 130 years old and it’s starting to get tired. There is a lot of renovation work to be done in the coming years and decades. The management company needs the means to deal with it.”
He said the strike was a “symbolic action on a symbolic day, to commemorate the anniversary of Eiffel’s death and preserve his work.”
Standing under the tower, Dutch tourist Istvan Harman was pragmatic about the closure, saying simply, “You have to go somewhere else.”
But it was a hard blow for the Fontaine family.
“It’s the first time we came to Paris with the kids and it was the first activity in the program. So we were very disappointed to see that the Eiffel Tower was closed today,” said the mother, Emma Fontaine.
The attraction normally receives about 20,000 visitors a day at this time of year, said the spokesman, who was not authorized to give his name publicly in accordance with the tower’s management policy.
A special musical show to mark Gustave Eiffel’s death on Dec. 27, 1923, was still scheduled to be broadcast on social media and French television Wednesday night because it was prerecorded, the spokesman said.