Paris’s Notre Dame evacuated after man shoots himself dead

A man shot himself dead Tuesday in front of the altar of Paris’s Notre Dame Cathedral, forcing the evacuation of the French capital’s famed tourist spot, police told AFP.

The man, in his 70s, committed suicide with a pistol some time after 1400 GMT, investigators said. Police had earlier said he was in his 50s.The cathedral was in the process of being evacuated, police said. It was not immediately clear how many people were inside the building at the time of the incident.

It was the second dramatic suicide in less than a week in Paris, after a 50-year-old man with a history of family problems shot himself dead Thursday in a primary school near the Eiffel Tower, in front of about a dozen stunned children.

Eiffel Tower evacuated after bomb threat

The Eiffel Tower was evacuated after an anonymous phone caller made a bomb threat

Nearly 1,400 people were cleared from the tourist attraction following a request from tower operators after the warning, a Paris police official said.

Police then searched the monument with sniffer dogs and set up a security perimeter.No explosives were found and the site was to be reopened, the official said .French authorities have stepped up anti-terror measures in recent weeks amid heightened concern about threats to France over its military campaign against al Qaida-linked fighters in Mali which began more than two months ago.The tower is occasionally evacuated because of such warnings - at least once last year and twice in 2011. The 1,063ft tower is one of the world's top tourist attractions, with millions of visitors a year.