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Paris’s Louvre museum evacuated ‘for security reasons’

The French capital's most iconic museum, Le Louvre, has temporarily closed due to security risks.

Published: 14 October 2023 13:56 CEST

Le Louvre, the most famous museum in Paris, has temporarily closed for security reasons.

Le Louvre, the most famous museum in Paris, has temporarily closed for security reasons. (Photo by ALAIN JOCARD / AFP)

Visitors were evacuated from the Louvre museum in Paris on Saturday, which closed “for security reasons” while France is on high alert following an attack in the northeastern town of Arras.

The country triggered its top alert level after a man stabbed a teacher to death and severely wounded three others at a school on Friday.

A spokeswoman for the Louvre, the largest museum in the world, told AFP it had “received a written message stating that there was a risk to the museum and its visitors”.

Chers visiteurs,

Pour des raisons de sécurité, le musée du #Louvre ferme ses portes ce jour, samedi 14 octobre.
Les personnes ayant réservé pour une visite dans la journée seront remboursées.

Nous vous remercions de votre compréhension. pic.twitter.com/2cEllnWCIa

— Musée du Louvre (@MuseeLouvre) October 14, 2023

“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 spokeswoman said.

Police in Arras arrested the suspected attacker, Mohammed Moguchkov, who had cried the Arabic phrase “Allahu akbar!” (God is greatest).

Authorities have suggested a probable link to the ongoing violence in the Middle East, with President Emmanuel Macron condemning an act of “Islamist terror”.

He was among 10 people being held in custody on Saturday, a police source told AFP, including several members of his family.

The Louvre said visitors who had booked a ticket for the day would be reimbursed.

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French election breakdown: TV clash, polling latest and 'poo' Le Pen

During the election period we will be publishing a bi-weekly ‘election breakdown’ to help you keep up with the latest developments. You can receive these as an email by going to the newsletter section here and selecting subscribe to ‘breaking news alerts’.

It’s now been 17 days since Macron’s surprise call for snap parliamentary elections, and four days until the first round of voting.

TV debates

The hotly-anticipated first TV debate of the election on Tuesday night turned out to be an ill-tempered affair with a lot of interruptions and men talking over each other.

The line of the night went to the left representative Manuel Bompard – who otherwise struggled to make much of an impact – when he told far-right leader Jordan Bardella (whose Italian ancestors migrated to France several generations back): “When your personal ancestors arrived in France, your political ancestors said exactly the same thing to them. I find that tragic.”

But perhaps the biggest question of all is whether any of this matters? The presidential election debate between Macron and Marine Le Pen back in 2017 is widely credited with influencing the campaign as Macron exposed her contradictory policies and economic illiteracy.

However a debate ahead of the European elections last month between Bardella and prime minister Gabriel Attal was widely agreed to have been ‘won’ by Attal, who also managed to expose flaws and contradictions in the far right party’s policies. Nevertheless, the far-right went on to convincingly beat the Macronists at the polls.

Has the political scene simply moved on so that Bardella’s brief and fact-light TikTok videos convince more people than a two-hour prime-time TV debate?

You can hear the team from The Local discussing all the election latest on the Talking France podcast – listen here or on the link below

Road to chaos

Just over two weeks ago when Macron called this election, he intended to call the bluff of the French electorate – did they really want a government made up of Marine Len Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party?

Well, latest polling suggests that a large portion of French people want exactly that, and significantly fewer people want to continue with a Macron government.

With the caveat that pollsters themselves say this is is a difficult election to call, current polling suggests RN would take 35 percent of the vote, the leftist alliance Nouveau Front Populaire 30 percent and Macron’s centrists 20 percent.

This is potentially bad news for everyone, as those figures would give no party an overall majority in parliament and would instead likely usher in an era of political chaos.

The questions discussed in French conversation and media have now moved on from ‘who will win the election?’ to distinctly more technical concerns like – what exactly does the Constitution say about the powers of a president without a government? Can France have a ‘caretaker government’ in the long term? Is it time for a 6th republic?.

The most over-used phrase in French political discourse this week? Sans précédent (unprecedented).

Démission

From sans précédent to sans président – if this election leads to total chaos, will Macron resign? It’s certainly being discussed, but he says he will not.

For citizens of many European parliamentary democracies it seems virtually automatic that the president would resign if he cannot form a government, but the French system is very different and several French presidents have continued in post despite being obliged to appoint an opponent as prime minister.

READ ALSO Will Macron resign in case of an election disaster?

The only president of the Fifth Republic to resign early was Charles de Gaulle – the trigger was the failure of a referendum on local government, but it may be that he was simply fed up; he was 78 years old and had already been through an attempted coup and the May 1968 general strike which paralysed the country. He died a year after leaving office.

Caca craft

She might be riding high in the polls, but not everyone is enamoured of Le Pen, it seems, especially not in ‘lefty’ eastern Paris – as seen by this rather neatly crafted Marine Le Pen flag stuck into a lump of dog poo left on the pavement.

Thanks to spotter Helen Massy-Beresford, who saw this in Paris’s 20th arrondissement.

You can find all the latest election news HERE, or sign up to receive these election breakdowns as an email by going to the newsletter section here and selecting subscribe to ‘breaking news alerts’.

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