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French authorities have re-opened one of the country's most popular tourist sites, Mont Saint-Michel abbey, hours after a major evacuation and house-by-house search for a visitor who reportedly yelled "I'm going to kill a cop".
The exceptional and elaborate evacuation of one of France's most-visited tourist sites came after a string of sporadic attacks around France in recent years targeting police, some of them fatal.
Details of the threat were unclear, but the national gendarme service said authorities ordered the evacuation on Sunday morning (local time) of one of France's most-visited tourist sites as a precaution.
It was re-opened at 2pm local time and local authorities tweeted that "all risks have been averted".
"All houses have been checked, all public and private venues were inspected by the police," district prefect Jean-Marc Sabathe said.
"I'm almost certain that he's gone."
There was contradictory information about the circumstances of the threat. An official with the national gendarme service said the man made the threat on one of the shuttles servicing the site.
Mr Sabathe said the man made the threat when he was trying to stage a street performance and got in an argument with a cafe worker.
He said the man was caught on video surveillance cameras.
Mont Saint-Michel mayor Yann Galton told television channel France 3 Normandie the suspect had yelled "I'm going to kill a cop".
The suspect was described as a young man aged between 20 and 30, wearing a white t-shirt and dark trousers, according to Le Figaro.
Mont Saint-Michel, which is surrounded by water at high tide, draws more than a million visitors a year to its 10th century abbey and other sites, making it France's biggest tourist attraction outside Paris.
At the height of the evacuation three police helicopter circled over the peninsula, notably famous for being isolated by high tides, and the surrounding region.
ABC/wires
Topics: tourism, police, crime, france
First posted