Tourists at French abbey evacuated:

Europe

Sarkisian

French authorities evacuated tourists from the Mont-Saint-Michel abbey and searched houses Sunday on the famed outcropping in the English Channel for a visitor who apparently threatened to attack security services.

The exceptional 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.

The site reopened Sunday afternoon and a trickle of tourists started returning to the Mont across a promontory that connects it to the mainland. Several hours of searching failed to turn up the suspect, and police expanded their search to neighboring towns, according to the national gendarme service. (AP)