Louvre and Versailles evacuated amid maximum security alert in France

The Louvre Museum and Versailles Palace evacuated visitors and staff on Saturday after receiving bomb threats. France has declared a top-level security alert nationwide following the murder of a teacher at a high school in a suspected terrorist attack.

Police officers stand guard outside the Louvre Museum as people are evacuated, on 14 October 2023. The Louvre said it was closing for the day and evacuating all visitors and staff after it received a threat. © AP / Thomas Padilla

A spokesperson for the Louvre, the largest museum in the world, told French news agency AFP it had "received a written message stating that there was a risk to the museum and its visitors".

"We have decided in the current national context of an 'emergency attack' alert to evacuate and close it for the day, while we carry out the necessary checks," the spokesperson said.

The museum said no one has been hurt.

The former royal palace at Versailles also received bomb threats, a national police spokesperson said. The palace and its gardens were being evacuated while police examine the area, the spokesperson said.

Alarms rang out through the vast Louvre Museum when the evacuation was announced, and in the underground shopping centre below.

Police cordoned off the monument from all sides, and the underground access, as tourists and other visitors streamed out. Videos posted online showed people leaving, some hurriedly and some stopping to take photos, others apparently confused.

At Le Louvre and they’re suddenly evacuating everyone and closing the museum pic.twitter.com/evJwWjkfBX

— BkkGirl (@bkkgirl) October 14, 2023

Maximum alert

France upped its alert level to the highest position following a crunch security meeting on Friday, hours after the knife attack in the north-eastern town of Arras.

Police arrested the suspected attacker, a former student in his 20s named Mohammed Moguchkov, who was on France's terror watchlist for suspected radicals.

Authorities have suggested a probable link to the ongoing violence in the Middle East, with President Emmanuel Macron denouncing the incident as an act of "Islamist terror".

• Teacher killed in knife attack by former pupil in northern France

An extra 7,000 soldiers will be deployed to protect the public, the government said on Saturday.

While security forces are not responding to a specific threat, "there is an extremely negative atmosphere, notably due to the call to take action", said Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, telling TF1 television that there was "doubtless" a link with the latest conflict in Israel and the Gaza Strip. 

The maximum alert serves "to instruct all administrations to be vigilant", he said.

The extra soldiers will be deployed from Operation Sentinelle, a French military operation ordered in the aftermath of the January 2015 attacks to protect parts of the country deemed sensitive from terrorism.

The deployment will be completed by Monday evening, according to the Elysee presidential palace.

Multiple arrests

"This school was struck by the barbarity of Islamist terrorism," Macron said after visiting the campus, adding that the victim had "probably saved many lives" with his courage in blocking the attacker.

Macron said another attempted attack in a different region had been foiled by security forces. According to the interior ministry, a "radicalised" man was arrested leaving a prayer hall in the Yvelines region of Paris for carrying a prohibited weapon.

A total of eight people were in police custody on Friday, a police source said.

In addition to the attacker, several members of his family were arrested "for the purposes of the investigation", including one of his brothers and his sister, other police sources said.

Moguchkov is from Russia's mainly Muslim southern Caucasus region of Chechnya.

He was already on a French national register known as "Fichier S" as a potential security threat, a police source told AFP, and under electronic and physical surveillance by France's domestic intelligence agency, the DGSI.

No pupils hurt

The victim, a French teacher, was stabbed in the throat and chest.

Among those wounded were a school security guard who was stabbed multiple times and is fighting for his life, and a teacher in a less serious condition, the source added.

A cleaner was also hurt, according to anti-terror prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard.

No pupils at the school were hurt, another police source said.

The attack comes almost three years to the day after the 16 October 2020 beheading of teacher Samuel Paty near his school in a Paris suburb.

France has suffered a series of attacks by Islamist extremists since 2015. There has been a relative lull in recent years, though officials have warned that the threat remains.

(with AFP and Associated Press)