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Strike at the Eiffel Tower Closes One of the World’s Most Popular Monuments to Visitors

A general view of the Eiffel Tower that remains closed to visitors during a strike of the staff in Paris, France, 19 February 2024. (EPA)
A general view of the Eiffel Tower that remains closed to visitors during a strike of the staff in Paris, France, 19 February 2024. (EPA)
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Strike at the Eiffel Tower Closes One of the World’s Most Popular Monuments to Visitors

A general view of the Eiffel Tower that remains closed to visitors during a strike of the staff in Paris, France, 19 February 2024. (EPA)
A general view of the Eiffel Tower that remains closed to visitors during a strike of the staff in Paris, France, 19 February 2024. (EPA)

Visitors to the Eiffel Tower were turned away on Monday because of a strike over poor financial management at one of the world’s most-visited sites.

A sign was posted at the entrance in English, saying: “Due to a strike, the Eiffel Tower is closed. We apologize.”

The hugely popular 330-meter (1083-foot) landmark in central Paris has seen soaring visitor numbers in the lead-up to the Summer Olympics in the French capital.

Tourists planning to visit the Eiffel Tower on Monday were warned of disruptions in multiple languages on its website. Visitors were advised to check the website before heading to the monument or to postpone their trip. Electronic ticket owners were told to check their inboxes beforehand.

The landmark's operator also said on its website that visits to the Eiffel Tower will be disrupted on Tuesday.

“We’re a little disappointed but we understand that people deserve a fair wage and they deserve proper working conditions,” said Marisa Solis, an American tourist, visiting Paris from New York City.

The Eiffel Tower is typically open 365 days a year. Monday’s closure is the second in two months due to strikes. In December, it was closed to visitors for an entire day during Christmas and New Year’s holidays because of a strike over contract negotiations.

Morgan McKenny, an American living in Germany, has come to Paris to celebrate her birthday and decided to enter the landmark Monday after surveying it from all sides over the weekend.

“Knowing that I can’t come to the tower today is very, very disappointing,” McKenny said. She added: “I appreciate the workers wanting to keep the tower going for the next few hundred years.”

Stephane Dieu of the CGT union, which represents a large number of the Eiffel Tower’s employees, said Monday's strike is aimed at a salary increase in proportion to the incoming revenue from ticket sales and improved maintenance of the monument, which is owned by the Paris municipality.

Union leaders have criticized the Eiffel Tower operator's business model, saying it's based on an inflated estimate of future visitor numbers, maintenance cost expenses and employees' work compensation.

“They are giving priority to short-term benefits over long-term conservation of the monument and the well-being of the company we are working for,” Dieu said in an interview with The Associated Press at the Eiffel Tower picket line on Monday.

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Hong Kong Museum Puts Picasso in Cross-cultural Dialogue

Artworks by Pablo Picasso are pictured during the media preview of 'Picasso for Asia: A Conversation' at M+ in Hong Kong. May JAMES / AFP
Artworks by Pablo Picasso are pictured during the media preview of 'Picasso for Asia: A Conversation' at M+ in Hong Kong. May JAMES / AFP
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Hong Kong Museum Puts Picasso in Cross-cultural Dialogue

Artworks by Pablo Picasso are pictured during the media preview of 'Picasso for Asia: A Conversation' at M+ in Hong Kong. May JAMES / AFP
Artworks by Pablo Picasso are pictured during the media preview of 'Picasso for Asia: A Conversation' at M+ in Hong Kong. May JAMES / AFP

More than a century ago, Pablo Picasso smashed the Sacre-Coeur Basilica in Paris into a web of tangled lines on his canvas, deconstructing reality with the brushstrokes of a master cubist.
At a Hong Kong exhibition opening Saturday, that painting will be shown alongside a more literal form of destruction -- a "gunpowder drawing" by Chinese-born artist Cai Guo-Qiang -- as part of a cross-cultural exchange, AFP said.
"Interest in (Picasso's) life and work hasn't subsided at all, including in Asia" in the half-century since his death, said Doryun Chong, artistic director and chief curator at the M+ museum.
The show will pair more than 60 masterpieces loaned from the Picasso Museum in Paris with around 130 works by Asian and Asian-diasporic artists.
Highlights include "Portrait of a Man" from Picasso's Blue Period, a 1937 horse head sketch for "Guernica" and "Massacre in Korea", a 1951 expressionist anti-war painting.
"Exhibitions on Picasso tend to be very monographic," said Chong, who co-curated the event.
"We felt that it's more productive for understanding Picasso... that we create these unexpected juxtapositions and dialogues."
Cecile Debray, president of the Picasso Museum in Paris, hailed the approach as being "decentered from the Western point of view".
The last major Picasso showcase in Hong Kong, a more straightforward affair, took place in 2012 and drew huge crowds.
In the intervening decade, Picasso's reputation has been dented by the #MeToo movement as critics decried his abusive treatment of wives and girlfriends.
"We are of course very open and honest about the rather disturbing aspects of his biography, but we also shouldn't let that determine the meanings of his whole career," Chong said.
Hong Kong officials have touted the four-month exhibition as part of "Art March", hoping that high-brow events at museums, fairs and auction houses can boost the city's international appeal.
Since opening in late 2021, M+ has seen more than eight million visitors -- a bright spot for Hong Kong's loss-making West Kowloon Cultural District.
Chong said the museum connects visual culture between Asia and the world, citing the example of how Picasso is placed next to self-taught local painter Luis Chan.
Chan, who drew ample inspiration from the Spanish master, was "of the older generation when formal training in art was not possible in Hong Kong".
"Still he felt connected to the center of the art world at the time in Paris, and the very important figure in that context (that is) Picasso."