The day after an Islamist attack in Arras, France lives in fear of attacks: two of the world’s most famous monuments, the Louvre Museum and the Palace of Versailles, were evacuated and closed on Saturday after the alarm was raised.
In both cases, videos posted on social networks showed visitors leaving the rooms to the sound of alarm sirens and in a visibly feverish mood.
First it was the Louvre, the world’s largest museum in the heart of Paris, which announced around midday that it would exceptionally close “for security reasons.”
“The Louvre has received a written message that there is a risk to the museum and its visitors,” a spokesman told AFP, while France is on “emergency attack alert” the day after the attack in Arras.
“We have decided, in the current national context of the “emergency alert”, to evacuate the museum and close it for the day while we carry out the essential controls,” added the spokesman for the museum, home to the most famous paintings in the world: “The Mona Lisa” by Leonardo da Vinci.
The police set up a security area around the facility.
The Louvre was unable to provide information on how many people were evacuated. In 2022, the museum welcomed 7.8 million visitors.
A few hours later, in the afternoon, the Palace of Versailles, a few kilometers from the capital, was also evacuated after a bomb threat, as AFP learned from police circles.
This bomb threat came via an anonymous message on the website moncommissariat.fr, a source familiar with the matter told AFP. The same source stated that the monument would not be reopened on Saturday.
Eliminate doubts
According to a police source, the evacuation was intended to carry out checks to dispel doubts.
The castle’s press service contacted by AFP confirmed the evacuation, but did not specify the reason.
This intervention “affects the entire castle and the estate,” this source added. At this time, at the end of the peak tourist season, according to the press service, “around 15,000 visitors, mainly French,” frequent the entire vast area where the castle of King Louis XIV is located.
France went on alert, the highest level of the Vigipirate system, on Friday evening after the murder of teacher Dominique Bernard, who was stabbed to death by a radicalized former student outside a middle school in Arras.
According to the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, this act is “Islamist terrorism”.
The Elysée Palace announced on Saturday the deployment of 7,000 soldiers to the area. These soldiers “will be deployed until Monday evening and until further notice,” the Elysée said, in a context marked by fears that the conflict between Hamas and Israel could be transferred to France.
Also in Paris, one of the halls of the Gare de Lyon, where important railway lines leave for southeastern France, was evacuated due to an abandoned object.
“It is a normal operation”, there is “nothing special”, however an SNCF spokesman cautiously expressed it to AFP.