Eiffel Tower Bomb Threat; Landmark Evacuated After Anonymous Call

PARIS (CBS/AP) The area under Paris' Eiffel Tower has been opened up to tourists again after an anonymous caller phoned in a bomb threat and police combed through the landmark looking for suspicious objects.

France's BFM television and other French media reported that police found nothing suspicious at the tower, which is France's most popular tourist monument. Paris police headquarters did not immediately respond to calls seeking information.

Around midnight in Paris, people were walking around and riding bikes under the tower. The tower itself usually closes at 11 p.m.

The CBS Evening News reported that an anonymous caller also phoned in a bomb threat to a commuter train station in central Paris. The St. Michel RER commuter train station near Notre Dame Cathedral was evacuated and police are investigating.

A Paris police spokesman said he had no information about the reports on the Saint-Michel station, which was the target of a terrorist attack in 1995 that killed eight and injured scores of people.

Across town, about 2,000 people were cleared from the 1,063-foot Eiffel Tower on the banks of the Seine River, a spokesman at the police headquarters said. He declined to give his name, citing department policy.

A police spokesperson told Cobbe that there was an anonymous phone call to the Eiffel Tower at around 8:20 p.m. local time.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the threats. But it comes after the head of France's counterespionage agency was quoted this weekend as saying that the risk of a terrorist attack on French soil has never been higher.

The tower is France's most popular landmark, and 6.6 million people visited it last year.

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