[1/3]French police officers stand guard outside the Chateau de Versailles (Palace of Versailles) as tourists re-enter after the palace was evacuated for security reasons in Versailles, near Paris, France, October 17, 2023. Portal/Clotaire Achi acquires license rights
PARIS, Oct 17 (Portal) – The Palace of Versailles, one of France’s top tourist attractions, reopened on Tuesday after being temporarily closed due to the second security crisis in four days.
France was already on high alert following the murder of a teacher on October 13 in a suspected Islamist attack.
The palace said on social media earlier in the day that it had evacuated visitors for “security reasons,” without giving further details.
BFM TV, citing police sources, said a bomb squad had been dispatched to the palace.
The local police department for Versailles later announced that the police operation had ended and a previously established security cordon had been lifted.
Built in the 17th century for King Louis XIV, the palace was the main royal residence until the French Revolution and the overthrow of the monarchy in 1789.
Tourists queuing outside the UNESCO World Heritage-listed palace had mixed emotions.
“It is a very worrying and tense situation, but we cannot stop living either,” said Jean-Pierre Brehon, 72, from nearby Saint-Germain-en-Laye, outside Paris.
“As foreigners, we’re not really used to all of this,” says 19-year-old Swiss tourist Margarita Costa. “We find it a little shocking.”
On Saturday, a day after the death of a teacher in France, bomb warnings that turned out to be false forced the evacuation of the Louvre Museum, the Palace of Versailles and Paris’ Gare de Lyon train station.
Reporting by Dominique Vidalon, Clotaire Achi; Edited by Benoit Van Overstraeten, Jonathan Oatis and Rod Nickel
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