Strike Closes Eiffel Tower

Tourists who have put up with cold and rain for the past few weeks had another disappointment Monday: The Eiffel Tower was closed by striking employees.

An undetermined number of the tower’s 180 workers, protesting the closing of a temporary parking space for night employees, refused to open the monument.

The Eiffel Tower normally stays open until midnight or 1 a.m.

A statement by the company that runs the monument said the parking space created in 1992 in an adjacent alley on the Champ de Mars was only temporary.

The Eiffel Tower is visited by 5.2 million people each year, more than any other monument in the world.