PARIS, France (AFP) — Paris’ Eiffel Tower was evacuated by police after midnight on Sunday (August 6) after a man with a knife tried to force his way through a security check but was quickly stopped.
The incident at the world-famous tourist site was initially treated as a criminal matter, but was later designated a counter-terrorism case because of the suspect’s statements to police and his apparent radicalization, a judicial source said.
The company that operates the Eiffel Tower said in a statement early on Sunday that a man with a knife tried to force his way through a security check around 2130 GMT on Saturday (August 5) before being quickly stopped.
A source close to the investigation said the suspect, a French national born in Mauritania in 1998, had been in a psychiatric hospital for several months and was granted temporary permission to leave care from August 4 to August 6.
