BFM, a French news station, says that the Eiffel Tower in Paris was evacuated twice on Saturday because of bomb threats.
Tourists were not allowed on the tower’s three floors or in the courtyard below for more than two hours early Saturday afternoon while officials decided if the threat was real. At about 12:15 p.m., the police quickly got everyone out of the tower and set up a security barrier.
Around 3:30 p.m. local time, the icon reopened, but people were told to leave again around 7:30 p.m.
“This is how it’s usually done in this kind of rare situation,” a monument spokeswoman told a French news agency.
They said that the last bomb threat that made them have to clear the tower for that long was in September 2020.
The tower is closed for the night, but after the second escape, it is opened again.
The Eiffel Tower is one of the most visited places in the world. It is in the middle of Paris and looks out over the Seine River. In 2022, more than 5.8 million people went to the place.