Eiffel shuts as workers strike over visitor queues

Talks between the CGT trade union and the tower’s management over a new access system - which according to workers was responsible for “monstrous” lines of visitors - reached deadlock on Wednesday afternoon, and the site closed at 4 pm (1400 GMT). 

It was not clear whether the strike would continue Thursday. The new system, which from July has reserved separate lifts for different types of ticket-holders, was exhausting staff who had to deal with the frustrated tourists, union officials said. The site’s management has said the summer months were always busy. 

More than 40 million tourists visited Paris last year, the highest on record, with over 6 million going up the 342-metre (1,063 ft) Eiffel Tower, the French capital’s most popular site in the city.

A change in who gets to use the Eiffel Tower’s elevators has stranded frustrated tourists in long queues at the Paris landmark during a heatwave in the French capital. Management of the tower decided this month to dedicate one elevator for those who book tickets in advance and leave only one for those who turn up on the day, rather than both as before. Sightseers who arrive without tickets have had to join queues that snake all the way around the base of the monument. Some said they had waited for up to three hours, annoyed that few people were lining up for the other elevator. 

Temperatures in the city have hit 38 degrees Celsius (100 Fahrenheit), leaving sweltering adults and children desperate for bottled water in the queue.

“It’s too long!” Burty Surette, 37, an electrician visiting from Mauritius said. “I was expecting the wait to be long but not this long. “There should be two elevators for people arriving without tickets. With the number of people that are coming to visit, one is not sufficient.”