Paris, Oct 14 (EFE).- The Louvre museum in Paris and the Versailles Palace outside the French capital were evacuated on Saturday due to bomb threats.
The Louvre, the most visited museum in the world, closed for the day “for security reasons” amid fears of a terror attack, one day after a Russian-born Chechen man killed a teacher and injured two others in a stabbing at a school in northern France.
The country has been placed under the highest terror alert in the wake of the knife attack.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), the museum said ticket holders for Saturday would be reimbursed.
According to the French press, up to 15,000 visitors had to be evacuated after the museum received a bomb threat in writing.
Last year, the Louvre, one of the world’s most popular tourist attractions, received almost 8 million visitors.
Later on Saturday, the Palace at Versailles and its surrounding gardens were also evacuated, French media reported.
Versailles is also one of the most visited tourist sites in the world, with around 7 million people visiting each year.
The evacuations and closures of the major tourist attractions come a day after the young Chechen, identified as Mohamed M., killed high school teacher Dominique Bernard, 57, at Gambetta high school in the northern French city of Arras.
The Elysee Palace said Saturday that up to 7,000 security officers would be deployed through Monday across the country in response to the heightened terrorist alert.
Since 2012, Islamist terror attacks in France have killed 272 people and injured 1,200. EFE
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