The castle of Versailles has been evacuated this Saturday afternoon after a bomb threat, which came through an anonymous message on the website moncommissariat.fr, a source close to the matter told AFP. The same source specified that the monument would not reopen today.
The same decision they had made at noon in the Louvre Museumwhich has closed in an exceptional way”for security reasons“, at a time when France is in emergency alert for terrorist attackand a day after the Islamist attack in Arras, in the north of the country, where a young man murdered a teacher and injured three other adults.
“The Louvre received a written message that mentioned a risk for the museum and its visitors” and “we choose evacuate and close it during the day, the time necessary to carry out the necessary verifications,” a spokeswoman told the France Press agency after the closure announcement on the social network Twitter.
A police source cited by French television TF1/LC1 has explained that the measure is in response to “messages from bomb threats” and “there is a check in progress”.
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The evacuation has been carried out late morning after a normal day in which the museum opened its doors at 9:00 a.m. Through a publication on its official account, the Louvre has detailed that people who had a visit to the museum booked for this Saturday will receive a refund.
France has raised this weekend the maximum anti-terrorist alert and has ordered the deployment of 7,000 soldiers throughout the country after the murder, this Friday, of a teacher from a high school in Arras (north) in an Islamist attack.