A strike by security workers shuttered the Eiffel Tower for a second day Thursday, frustrating tourists hoping to view Paris from its balconies.
Tower operators SETE said it was lodging a complaint with a court over the action by the 16-member security staff.
The tower was closed Thursday morning, then started allowing tourists back up to its balconies Thursday afternoon before shutting the door again at 4:30 p.m. (1430 GMT), as a meeting between SETE officials and union representatives was ending.
For several hours, tourists had squeezed into the tower's only functioning entrance, many frustrated at the long wait but a few expressing solidarity with the workers' demands.
The security workers are demanding bonuses for their long hours standing outside, year-round, usually in only a cotton suit and tie.
"We stand eight hours a day in the cold. We want a bonus," said Said Afettouche, representative of the CGT union at the private security company SAMSIC. Workers say they have no company-issued overcoats or outerwear.
The tower normally stays open all year, but has occasionally been shut in the past because of strikes or high winds.
Leone and Rod Woods, Australian tourists from New South Wales, waited more than three hours in front of a metal gate at the closed north entrance, without any warning or explanation that it was closed.
"It was the highlight of our trip," Leone Woods said, frustrated and disappointed.
More than 500 people work in the Eiffel Tower, which receives roughly 18,000 visitors per day. Designed by French architect Gustave Eiffel, the steel structure was inaugurated in 1889 and has become a Paris icon.
