Paris (AFP)
The Eiffel Tower will offer antigenic tests to its visitors without an anti-Covid health pass from Wednesday, the day this measure comes into force in cultural or leisure places receiving at least 50 people, its manager announced on Tuesday at AFP.
From 8:30 am Wednesday, one hour before the opening of the doors of the Iron Lady, visitors who cannot provide a health pass (proving the complete vaccination, a recent negative test or immunization) will have to, if they want to access at the monument, undergo an antigen test in tents set up in front of each of the two entrances, just before the security check, says the Eiffel Tower Operating Company (Sete).
This additional device "makes it possible to guarantee visitors a discovery of the monument in optimal conditions", commented Patrick Branco Ruivo, the director general of Sete, who says "to apply the decree" published Tuesday in the Official Journal.
If these tests will be free for French visitors, foreign tourists not residing in France will have to pay 25 euros, as everywhere in France since July 7.
"We warned our visitors upstream", in particular by messages in all languages on the website, underlines Mr. Branco Ruivo who initially plans 1,500 tests per day - that is to say for one visitor in 10 - and 20 test inspectors. health pass.
Among the most visited paid monuments in the world, the Eiffel Tower reopened Friday noon after eight and a half months of closure, its longest period without visitors of the post-war period.
Since Friday, this symbol of Paris has received between 10,000 and 13,000 tourists per day, the expected level which corresponds to half of its usual summer attendance.
If no sanitary gauge is provided at the entrance, the elevators of the first two floors can only take 50% of their usual load to enforce social distancing.
The mask is also compulsory.
Faced with the epidemic resumption linked to the progression of the Delta variant in France, the Council of Ministers adopted on Monday the bill including the obligation to vaccinate caregivers and extending the health pass.
© 2021 AFP