They spent a night under the stars in the Eiffel Tower: two drunk American tourists were found this morning asleep in the famous Parisian monument where they had hidden yesterday. This was reported by police and judicial sources and by the tower operating company. The two intruders were discovered “early in the morning”, before opening to the public at 9, during the tour made by the security agents of the Eiffel Tower operating company (Sete). The tourists were located between the second and third floors of the monument, in a part not accessible to the public. “They posed no apparent threat,” Sete indicated.
They had paid the entrance fee on Sunday around 10.40pm and they had crossed barriers on their way down the stairs, according to the police source. Firefighters, including those from the specialized unit of the Intervention and Reconnaissance Group in Hazardous Environments (Grimp), went to retrieve them and bring them to safety. “They would have been stuck on the spot because of alcohol”, according to the Parisian judicial authorities. The two men were taken to a police station for questioning, and Sete indicated her intention to press charges.
The Eiffel Tower reopened to the public about an hour late, around 10:00, in a new disservice in welcoming tourists after the two evacuations on Saturday caused by two false alarm attacks, into which an investigation has been opened. Again this morning, three Parisian police stations again received an email mentioning the presence of bombs on the Eiffel Tower but La Sete, on advice from the police, decided not to evacuate the monument.