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  • Hacker News
  • There's an irony those unions have supported the very politicians who brought the Hindus over who request the women be removed. People forget western culture is a unique culture, and could easily be supplanted.

    As others have pointed out though this probably isn't relevant for HN

    by guywithahat
  • All 3 things are so typical: 1) Ascetics living the high life 2) The French striking 3) Europeans throwing modern civil rights under the bus to accommodate foreigners who don't respect women
    by a34729t
  • Regarding 3) This is France, where in some areas swimwear on beaches is regulated. No "burkini", even non-tight-fitting swimshorts were disallowed.

    So to shake your head and think "Woke Europe" would be too simplistic.

    by netsharc
  • Religious cults have no business going to the Eiffel Tower in the first place. In general I would consider all religious cults a security risk. They also are likely using public donations to fund their frivolous outing.
    by OutOfHere
  • > Company head Ariel Weil told the AFP news agency that SETE will "draw the necessary conclusions" from the case. Weil himself is an elected official in Paris.

    Curious what those conclusions will be.

    by amelius
  • Tolerance of intolerance, what a world
    by skullone
  • Consider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
    by irickt
  • As a thought experiment, perhaps someone there thought not fulfilling the Indian group's request would be seen as insensitive.

    I suppose the decisionmaker needs to know what societal values one has to uphold, and in which order of importance. As a wild example, if the group had demanded the women walk around in the nude, because of their religion, it'd be obvious to say no because it'd violate so many of the employees' values.

    by netsharc
  • Probably not HN-relevant...

    But I find it flabbergasting that in 2026 someone in the management thought it'd be okay to tell female staff to hide, just because some delegation demanded it. But for the tech-relevancy angle; They could've asked AI "Would this be fine?".

    (Untested, presumably the AI would say "Merde! Non!")

    by netsharc
  • > But I find it flabbergasting that in 2026 someone in the management thought it'd be okay to tell female staff to hide, just because some delegation demanded it

    You're looking at the results of years of indoctrination related to the intersectional pyramid of oppression. On that pyramid you'll quickly find that people of colour practising an exotic religion end up above female employees so (most likely white, male) management thought it better to risk giving in to the former's request out of fear of being called 'racist' or something related. Sad, stupid, silly and totally not fitting Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité but that's what this type of thinking leads to.

    As to the answer given by any 'AI' that depends on whether it has been trained to follow the dictats of intersectionality. Unfortunately this seems to be the case [1,2,3] in at least some western models which claim that a woman using violence against a man to prevent a nuclear apocalypse is fine but disagree with a man using violence against a woman for the same purpose, which also refuse to 'misgender' someone to stop the apocalypse, etc. This is not the natural result of ingesting training data but points at a direct effort to instil these values into the model leading to rather crude and easily dismissed results.

    [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S245195882...

    [2] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-68412620

    [3] https://www.broadview.news/p/in-the-event-of-nuclear-war-ple...

    by hagbard_c
  • BAPS denies that they made any such request (let alone a _demand_); seems weird that DW omits any mention of this.
    by cholantesh
  • To play devils advocate: Isn't it that the management had to choose between two potential problematic decisions? What if the management declined the hindu request and then the hindus made a big fuss about it? Wouldn't people scream "how could they think that discriminating the hindu religion would be a good decision?!?".
    by ahofmann
  • Whether it be corporates, Eiffel Tower management, or religious groups, I guess the new norm is - better to ask for forgiveness.

    I am Indian origin so full disclosure done. I saw a picture of the group's 93 year old head in ascetic robes, the one who does not see women, have a picture below Eiffel Tower for memories. Sir, what part of asceticism do you teach?

    by kshacker