American tourists found sleeping it off atop Eiffel Tower

Two American tourists were found sleeping off a heavy night in the heights of Paris' Eiffel Tower on Monday, after dodging security the night before, the monument's operator said Tuesday.

Published: 15 August 2023 14:47 CEST

American tourists found sleeping it off atop Eiffel Tower

Two tourists spend illegal night at the Eiffel Tower. Photo: ALAIN JOCARD / AFP

Security guards roused the men “in the early morning” as they were making their rounds before the French landmark’s 9:00 am opening time, publicly-owned Eiffel Tower operator Sete said.

They “appear to have got stuck because of how drunk they were,” Paris prosecutors told AFP.

The inebriated Americans had spent their illicit night under the stars in a spot normally closed to the public between the tower’s second and third levels, but “did not pose any apparent threat,” said Sete.

After paying for an entry ticket around 10:40 pm on Sunday, the pair hopped security barriers while climbing down the stairs from the tower’s top, a police source said.

Firefighters, including a specialist unit for recovering people from dangerous heights, were sent to recover the interlopers, the police source added.

Both men were brought to the police station in Paris’ seventh district for questioning, while Sete said it would file a criminal complaint.

The discovery of the nocturnal infiltrators delayed the tower’s opening to the public on Monday morning for around an hour.

Two bomb threats had on Saturday forced the evacuation of the landmark, and police are now investigating.

A further email with a bomb threat against the 330-metre (1080 feet) steel tower was sent to three Paris police stations on Monday, but police advised against evacuating it.

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The French Jewish community, the third largest in the world, has for months been on edge in the face of a growing number of attacks and desecrations of memorials.

“National police in Rouen neutralised early this morning an armed individual who clearly wanted to set fire to the city’s synagogue,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Police responded at 6.45 am to reports of “fire near the synagogue”, a police source said.

A source close to the case told AFP the man “was armed with a knife and an iron bar, he approached police, who fired. The individual died”.

“It is not only the Jewish community that is affected. It is the entire city of Rouen that is bruised and in shock,” Rouen Mayor Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol wrote on X.

He made clear there were no other victims other than the attacker.

Two separate investigations have been opened, one into the fire at the synagogue and another into the circumstances of the death of the individual killed by the police, Rouen prosecutors said.

Such an investigation by France’s police inspectorate general is automatic whenever an individual is killed by the police.

The man threatened a police officer with a knife and the latter used his service weapon, said the Rouen prosecutor.

The dead man was not immediately identified, a police source said.

Asked by AFP, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office said that it is currently assessing whether it will take up the case.

France has the largest Jewish community of any country after Israel and the United States, as well as Europe’s largest Muslim community.

There have been tensions in France in the wake of the October 7th attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel, followed by the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Red hand graffiti was painted onto France’s Holocaust Memorial earlier this week, prompted anger including from President Emmanuel Macron who condemned “odious anti-Semitism”.

“Attempting to burn a synagogue is an attempt to intimidate all Jews. Once again, there is an attempt to impose a climate of terror on the Jews of our country. Combating anti-Semitism means defending the Republic,” Yonathan Arfi, the president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF). wrote on X.

France was hit from 2015 by a spate of Islamist attacks that also hit Jewish targets. There have been isolated attacks in recent months and France’s security alert remains at its highest level.