The famous Parisian monument was evacuated after a bomb threat. The alert was lifted around 3:30 p.m. and the Iron Lady reopened to the public.
The three floors of the Eiffel Tower and its forecourt were evacuated early Saturday afternoon after a bomb alert, BFM Paris Île-de-France learned from a police source. A team of deminers was on site to carry out a survey. “It’s a usual procedure in this kind of situation, which is rare nevertheless”, according to a spokeswoman for Sete, the monument operating company.
The alert was lifted around 3:30 p.m.
The evacuation concerned the three floors of the monument, including the restaurant of the tower, as well as the forecourt. Quickly, a large security perimeter was established, traffic diverted and the monument evacuated at 12:15 p.m.
The alert was lifted around 3:30 p.m. and the Iron Lady reopened to the public, La Sete and a police source said.
The last bomb threat that prompted an evacuation of the tower, also for two hours, was in September 2020, based on an anonymous call to police. At the time, “a man had called, shouted “Allah Akbar” and declared that he was going to “blow everything up” at the Eiffel Tower”, the police source had indicated in 2020.
In 2022, the most emblematic monument in Paris welcomed more than 5.8 million visitors.