Louvre Museum and Versailles Palace reopen post security threats

PARIS - France's two top tourist attractions - the Louvre Museum and the Palace of Versailles - have reopened after being forced to evacuate visitors and shut their doors due to security threats on Saturday, reported dpa news.

French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin gave the go-ahead in the evening after neither an explosive device was found nor an attack had taken place, he explained.

Both institutions announced their reopening on Sunday on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

The Louvre had received a written threat on Saturday, according to a spokeswoman, and the radio station Europe 1 said the threat against the palace was received anonymously on a police website.

The threats came at a time of unrest in the country: on Friday, a young man, allegedly a radicalised Islamist, killed a teacher with a knife and seriously injured three other people in a school in Arras in northern France.

Since then, France has been on the highest terror alert level. By Monday, 7,000 soldiers from the anti-terror unit Sentinelle are to be deployed nationwide.

The attack took place almost three years to the day after the gruesome attack on history teacher Samuel Paty. The 47-year-old had been killed and then beheaded by a radical Islamist assailant in a Paris suburb on October 16, 2020. - BERNAMA-dpa