No panoramic view of the City of Lights. The Eiffel Tower is closed during the day of Monday February 19, due to a renewable strike, announced the CGT and FO.
The two union organizations denounce the financial management of the site and ask the Paris City Hall, majority shareholder of Société d’exploitation de la tour Eiffel (SETE), to be “reasonable in terms of its financial requirements in order to ensure the sustainability of the monument and the company that manages it”.
The unions, which had already organized a strike at the end of December, on the occasion of the centenary of the death of Gustave Eiffel, criticize an economic model “too ambitious and untenable” with a “undervaluation of works budgets”coupled with a “overvaluation of revenue”. This model “became unlivable following the Covid period, which deprived the monument of 120 million in revenue from ticket sales”.
Colossal expenses
Another sticking point: the state of the monument, despite the restoration work in progress, which, say the unions, presents, “numerous visible corrosion points, symptoms of worrying degradation”and this while “the last painting campaign, the main guarantee of the conservation of the monument, saw its production costs soar” with “100 million euros invested for a partial painting campaign with only 3% of the monument stripped”.
The unions are calling for the creation of a “special endowment fund in anticipation of the colossal expenses that will be necessary in the decades to come”.