Eiffel Tower Evacuated in Rash of Tourist Area Bombings in Paris

French police evacuated tourists from the Eiffel Tower on Tuesday after a bomb was found in a public lavatory on the third level and defused.

A few hours later, a crowded bookshop in a popular tourist area of the Latin Quarter was rocked by another blast, injuring at least three people.

Earlier, a bomb exploded in a Paris shopping arcade off the Champs-Elysees, injuring eight people. A previously unknown group seeking the release of Arab prisoners claimed responsibility for the Monday night blast.

The device concealed at the Eiffel Tower was defused only 90 minutes before it was timed to go off at 1 a.m. Tuesday. Tower manager Philippe Maresquier said it was discovered behind a toilet in washrooms on the recently renovated third floor by a cleaning woman beginning night duty.

About 100 people still in the tower, one of the world’s most popular and famous tourist attractions, were quickly evacuated; bomb disposal experts defused the device, and the tower was searched for explosives, Maresquier said.

Officials said the bomb, planted just below a platform that supports Paris’ radio and television transmitters, would have left millions of viewers in the dark and halted telephone service if it had exploded. It would also have destroyed roof antennas vital to defense, police and ambulance communications.

The structural steel monument, which was built by Gustave Eiffel for the Universal Exposition of 1889, recently underwent a general facelift, including installation of sodium-vapor lighting.

In the bookstore blast, at the Gilbert-Jeune shop on the Place St. Michel, flames engulfed the store after the bomb exploded in a basement record section. The blast injured two employes and at least one customer, tore up the floor, and sent flames and smoke through the windows and sweeping through upper stories, according to police.

A security guard said: “I heard a big noise and then the fire spread everywhere immediately because of all the books and records in the place. It’s unbelievable that only three people were injured.”

Police sealed off the Left Bank area, not far from the Sorbonne and the Seine River, as 17 fire trucks carried 100 men to the scene. The square is crowded day and night with cinema and restaurant patrons.

In the Monday night incident, a bomb hidden in a garbage can in the Galerie Claridge, a luxury shopping arcade off the Avenue des Champs-Elysees, shattered boutique windows and injured eight people, three severely.

It took place as late-night window-shoppers strolled through the arcade and others sat down to late meals.

On Tuesday, a group calling itself the Committee of Solidarity with the Arab and Middle East Political Prisoners claimed responsibility for this attack in a letter to the French news service Agence France-Presse.

The group demanded the release of George Ibrahim Abdallah (also known by the name Abdel-Kader Essadi), Anis Nakache and Waroujan Garbidjian, who are thought to be held in French jails for their part in attacks on political figures in France. These included the killing of an Israeli diplomat and an assassination attempt on the late Shah of Iran’s last prime minister, Shahpour Bakhtiar.

The last bombings in Paris occurred Dec. 7, when explosions in two department stores crowded with Christmas shoppers on a Saturday afternoon injured 39 people.