(Paris) The Eiffel Tower will remain closed on Wednesday for the third consecutive day due to the strike by employees of its operating company (SETE), who criticize it for its financial management, the two unions representing staff confirmed to AFP .
“We are determined, and we have the impression that they are taking it lightly,” summarizes the FO union delegate, Nada Bzioui, on the third day of a bogged down social conflict between management and the CGT and FO.
“And it would surprise me if it was open tomorrow” Thursday, says Mme Bzioui.
This conflict, which had already led to the closure of the Iron Lady 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.
On Tuesday, the negotiations came to an end, the request of the two unions to obtain an interlocutor at the town hall, ultra-majority shareholder (99%) of the SETE, having not, according to them, been heard.
“We are listening to the demands and concerns,” assures the first deputy Emmanuel Grégoire on France Info, in a first reaction from the Town Hall since the start of the conflict.
The representatives of the approximately 360 employees of the Iron Lady are asking to be able to consult the amendment to the public service delegation contract (DSP) which runs until 2030, the subject of their dissatisfaction.
The amendment, which provides for a 20% increase in ticket prices, must be validated in May by the Paris Council.
The two points of contention are the fee paid by SETE to the town hall and the works budget for the rest of the DSP.
The unions criticize the town hall for being too greedy with an “exponential increase in its fees, from 8 to 50 million euros per year”, when management assures that it will drop by 51 million compared to the initial contract.
According to Nada Bzioui, management explained that it “will not touch the fee because the town hall needs it, nor the PCI (Contractual Investment Plan) because we cannot put in extra money” .
The economic balance of the Eiffel Tower, which in 2023 returned to higher attendance than it was before COVID-19, with 6.3 million visitors, was weakened by some 130 million euros in shortfalls. win during the two years of health crisis.
To cope, SETE was recapitalized to the tune of 60 million euros in 2021 by the town hall. “The City has never failed in its duty of support” to the SETE, the Eiffel Tower “is its jewel”, underlined Emmanuel Grégoire.
Added to these lost revenues was an equivalent additional bill – around 130 million euros – for additional costs of renovation work, mainly linked to the current painting campaign, complicated by the discovery of traces of lead.
Despite this work, “numerous points of corrosion are visible, symptoms of a worrying deterioration of the monument”, deplores the inter-union association.
“This monument is in very good condition”, estimates Emmanuel Grégoire, stressing that the monument “is not easy to renovate”.