It’s not a strike this time but a string of security scares that have closed airports across France, and at the Palace of Versailles and the Louvre Museum.
At least four airports were evacuated on Wednesday following emailed bomb threats and sightings of unattended luggage in Lille, Lyon, Toulouse and Beauvais near Paris, French news agency AFP reported. Citing an anonymous police source, AFP also reported that the airports in Nantes and Nice also were evacuated. The airport in Nice posted on X that “a security perimeter was set up to allow the usual checks to be carried out” following a report of abandoned baggage in a terminal, and CNN reported the airports in Biarritz and Strasbourg also were evacuated.
Tourist attractions are being targeted as well. Visitors were evacuated from the Palace of Versailles three times in the past week, and from the Louvre Museum on Saturday due to email threats and abandoned baggage.
The French government heightened the national threat alert and ordered up to 7,000 soldiers to be deployed until further notice to bolster security and vigilance around France after a suspected Islamist extremist stabbed a teacher to death and injured three others. More than 100 people have been arrested for antisemitic acts or inciting terrorism since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7, and 193 foreigners whom French intelligence services consider “dangerous” are being sent back to their countries of origin.