Yoan Valat/EPA

Notre Dame Cathedral is evacuated by the police in Paris on May 21, 2013.

A man committed suicide inside Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on Tuesday, prompting the clearing out of hundreds of tourists, who had been waiting in a snaking line to visit the 850-year-old landmark.

Before pulling a gun and shooting himself in the head, the elderly man placed a letter on the altar, The Associated Press reported. Its contents were not known.

The man said nothing before he pulled the trigger, Reuters reported. He died just after 4 p.m. local time.

Europe 1 radio and French media identified the man as 78-year-old Dominique Venner, an activist and historian known in France for his far-right political essays.

A May 21 post on Venner's blog criticized a law passed last week allowing same-sex marriage.

Monsignor Patrick Jacquin, the cathedral's rector, told the AP this was the first suicide in decades at the historic site.

"It's unfortunate, it's dramatic, it's shocking," Jacquin told the AP. The motives for the suicide were unclear.

Police evacuated visitors out of the cathedral after the shooting, the AP reported, in an unusual move for a landmark site visited by about 13 million people every year.

NBC News' Nancy Ing in Paris contributed to this report.

France became the 14th country in the world to allow same-sex couples to wed Tuesday, when its parliament approved a law that has sparked often violent street protests and a rise in homophobic attacks.

Lawmakers in the lower house National Assembly, where President Francois Hollande’s Socialists have an absolute majority, passed the bill by 331 votes for and 225 against.

The law also allows same-sex couples to adopt children.

“I hope people across the country will celebrate this moment,” Martin Gaillard, a 31-year-old advocate of gay marriage, told English-language news site France24.com.

Opponents of the law have held increasingly angry protests in recent weeks, including a string of confrontations with police in Paris.

They fought hard to scuttle the parliamentary bill because it also allows the use of surrogate motherhood by gay couples wanting children.

The debate is also blamed for fanning a spate of homophobic attacks, including the beating up of a 24-year-old in the southern city of Nice on Saturday, Reuters reported.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Related:

New Zealand becomes 13th country to legalize gay marriage

Protesters in France: Gay marriage would hurt children 

This story was originally published on Tue Apr 23, 2013 11:33 AM EDT

Jacques Brinon / AP

A visitor stands in front of the closed Louvre museum Paris, France, Wednesday.

PARIS - Tourists caught no glimpse of the Mona Lisa, Winged Victory or Venus de Milo on Wednesday due to a one-day closure of the Louvre, as guards protested that pickpockets were rampant at the world's most visited museum. 

Two hundred museum guards exercised their right to a work stoppage, forcing the museum to shut its doors for the day, union representatives said. 

The CGT union said guards were "fed up" by attacks and threats directed at them and visitors over the past few months by pickpockets.

The secretary general of the national union for museums (SNMD), David Maillard, said petty thieves were multiplying at the site, visited by nearly 9 million people each year.

"There are thefts and threats every day. The guards are fed up with being assaulted by pickpockets," Maillard told Reuters, adding that the unions want better security at the museum.

The Louvre, which confirmed the closure on its website, could not be immediately reached for comment, but unions said the museum would reopen on Thursday.

Paris police regularly patrol the city's most crowded tourist sites, such as the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre.

But thieves who often operate in organised gangs are a constant frustration for authorities as they are easily able to exploit tourists and can lose themselves in crowds.

Many of those arrested do not hold French nationality or are minors, complicating judicial pursuit. 

Reuters contributed to this report.

Related:

Clashes, riot police, at French anti-gay marriage protest

France's 'rich tax' means Paris mansions for sale

Philippe Roesch / Visual Forensic via AFP - Getty Images

A computer generated image shows a reconstruction of the head of French King Henri IV (1553-1610) made after a panel of forensic scientists identified the skull of the king who was murdered at the age of 57 on May 14, 1610, by a fanatic.

Bellet-gabet / Bellet / Galaxy Press via AFP - Getty Images

The mummified head of French King Henri IV.

Scientists revealed the reconstructed head of French King Henri IV (1553-1610) during a press conference in Paris on Tuesday. This reconstruction was made three years after a panel of forensic scientists identified the skull of the king, who was murdered by a fanatic, at the age of 57 on May 14, 1610.

Scientists headed by France's Philippe Charlier found a common genetic profile between the mummified head of Henri IV and dried blood from his descendant, Louis XVI.  

-- AFP - Getty Images

Related: King Richard III's face revealed after 500 years

Loic Venance / AFP - Getty Images

The skull of French King Henri IV and, at right, its reconstruction, appear on a screen during a press conference in Paris on Feb. 12.

Gonzalo Fuentes / Reuters

Priests arrive to attend a ceremony to bless the new eight bronze bells of Notre Dame in Paris, on Feb. 2. The new eight bronze bells were cast with medieval methods at a French foundry in Normandy, and are ready now to ring for the 850th anniversary of the cathedral on March 23, 2013.

Nine newly cast bells are to be installed at Notre Dame, the historic Paris cathedral whose towers were made famous by the fictional hunchbacked bell-ringer Quasimodo.

The giant bronze bells, commissioned as part of the cathedral's 850th birthday celebrations, will replace the current bells, whose chimes are notoriously discordant.

After the French Revolution began in 1789, nine of the 10 original bells were snatched, melted down and turned into cannons.

Of the replacements, four were recast in the 19th century, and the original sound was lost.

"Historically the idea of this project is to recreate the old bells of Notre Dame in terms of tune so there will be 10 bells ringing as there used to be in the Middle Ages," said Paul Bergamo, president of the Cornille-Havard foundry in Normandy.

They will be on display inside the cathedral for three weeks, then hung in the cathedral towers. They will be rung for the first time on March 23, the day before Palm Sunday.

More than 20 million visitors come to the cathedral ever year, making it one of Europe’s top tourist attractions.

Its tower and bells were made famous by Victor Hugo’s 1831 novel "The Hunchback of Notre Dame."

Charles Platiau / Reuters

The public take photographs of 'Gabriel', the new and biggest bell, as it is lifted in front of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, on Jan. 31.

A foul-smelling cloud of gas escaped from a factory in northern France on Tuesday, making life unpleasant from the outskirts of Paris to Britain's shores and prompting scores of emergency calls.

France's Interior Ministry released a statement saying the mercaptan gas escaping from the Rouen chemical factory is harmless. Among other uses, mercaptan is added to otherwise odorless municipal gas to alert people of leaks. The factory has been shut down, and environmental authorities are carrying out tests.

While authorities reassured residents no to worry, winds carried the smell across hundreds of square miles.

Police in the coastal English town of Hastings reassured residents in a tweet with the hashtag "noneedtopanic" that mercaptan from Rouen was the likely cause of the odor.

The London Fire Brigade tweeted that it had received five times as many calls about potential gas leaks before 10:30 Tuesday morning than it had taken all of the day before. The response? Hashtag "mondieu."

The factory in the northern city of Rouen is owned by Lubrizol, a subsidiary of investor Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway.

"Bearing in mind the lack of danger, residents of the areas concerned are asked not to call emergency services," the Interior Ministry said.

Charly Triballeau / AFP - Getty Images

A gas leak at this chemical plant in the Normandy city of Rouen could be smelled as far away as Paris and London. Officials say it is harmless.

The local government posted a message on its website, asking people not to call emergency services and instead set up a hotline to answer questions about the smell.

Pierre-Jean Payrouse, the director of internal operations for the factory, said he hoped the leak would be stopped by Tuesday evening.

But not in time for a French Cup soccer game scheduled for the evening; authorities postponed the Marseille-Rouen match.

LONDON -- London's Heathrow Airport canceled a fifth of flights and airlines scrapped 40 percent of flights to Paris' main airports as snow continued to blanket parts of Europe, with more forecast.

Air France predicted more cancellations on a similar scale for Monday.

Heathrow Ltd, which is owned by Spain's Ferrovial, said the reduced schedule -- amounting to about 250 fewer flights -- would help it cope with the expected snowfall without making further cancellations.

As snow continued to fall through Sunday, the airport operator said Monday's flight schedule would be cut by 10 percent. That number could rise, depending on conditions at other European airports, Heathrow said.

The Paris airport operator, ADP, said airlines scrapped 40 percent of flights into and out of the two main airports on the outskirts of Paris, Charles de Gaulle and Orly, primarily reducing short-haul services. 

London's smaller Stansted and Gatwick airports said they were operating as normal on Sunday morning but that delays and some flight cancellations were likely. 

Weather forecaster the British Met Office said snow was likely to continue into Monday. As much as eight centimeters was expected in southeast England on Sunday, it said.

On average, some 1,300 flights leave Heathrow daily. The airport, Europe's busiest, operates at close to full capacity after Britain's coalition government blocked development of a third runway in 2010. 

Heathrow has spent 36 million pounds ($57 million) on upgrading its winter weather equipment since 2010 -- a year that saw it face heavy criticism after it almost shut down when snow hit just before Christmas. It now has 130 snow-clearing vehicles. 

More than 400 flights were canceled on Friday, while on Saturday 111 flights, most of them operated by IAG's British Airways, were canceled and hundreds of passengers spent the night in Heathrow's terminals. 

Watch World News videos on NBCNews.com

BA said there had been a knock-on effect because many of its planes were in the wrong place after Friday's snow.

"Like other airlines at Heathrow we have complied with a request to reduce our schedule by 20 percent on Sunday and we continue to work with Heathrow Airport to help keep the airport running as smoothly as possible," BA said in a statement. 

"We are doing everything we can to help customers whose flights have been disrupted by severe weather."

PhotoBlog: Hundreds of flights canceled at Heathrow due to snow

Services by Air France-KLM, Ireland's Aer Lingus and Germany's Lufthansa have also been affected. 

France's SNCF railway company announced delays of up to 40 minutes on many lines as drivers were ordered to reduce speed as a safety measure. 

Local media said some 25,000 homes lost power in southwestern France. 

($1 = 0.6304 British pounds)

Additional reporting by Rosalba O'Brien in London, and Brian Love and Gerard Bon in Paris.

Thomas Samson / AFP - Getty Images

Members of France's Kurdish community gather on Thursday while two men, seen left, carry the body of one of the three women slain in Paris.

PARIS - Three Kurdish women were shot dead in Paris in killings that appeared politically motivated, police and other sources said Thursday.

The bodies of the women were found at the Information Center of Kurdistan, a police source said. The center has close links to Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

The Firat news agency, which is close to the PKK, said another victim was the Paris representative of the Brussels-based Kurdistan National Congress political group.

"There is no doubt this was politically motivated," center employee Berivan Akyol told French broadcaster iTele. 

The PKK has waged a 28-year insurgency against the Turkish state in which more than 40,000 people are estimated to have been killed.

The Turkish government has recently acknowledged holding talks with the organization's jailed leader, Abdullah Ocalan.

They have agreed a framework for a peace plan, according to Turkish media reports.

'Executed'
Firat reported that two of those killed were shot in the head and one in the stomach, and that the murder weapon was believed to have been fitted with a silencer.

"A couple of colleagues saw blood stains at the door. When they broke the door open and entered they saw the three women had been executed," French Kurdish Associations Federation Chairman Mehmet Ulker was quoted as saying by Firat.

Turkish broadcasters cited police as saying the women had links to the PKK.

The PKK is designated a terrorist group the United States, Turkey and European Union.

Related stories:
After decades of oppression, Kurds get taste of freedom as Assad's troops flee 
From April 2011: Headscarves slam brakes on women's careers

Christophe Ena / AP

Napoleon's secret coded letter, shown here in this photo taken Nov. 28, declares his intentions "to blow up the Kremlin" during his ill-fated Russian campaign in 1812.

FONTAINEBLEAU, France -- The single line of Napoleon's secret code told Paris of his desperate, last order against the Russians: "At three o'clock in the morning, on the 22nd I am going to blow up the Kremlin."

By the time Paris received the letter three days later, the Russian czar's seat of power was in flames and the diminished French army was in retreat. Its elegantly calligraphic ciphers show history's famed general at one of his weakest moments.

"My cavalry is in tatters, many horses are dying," dictated Napoleon, the once-feared leader showing the strain of his calamitous Russian invasion, which halved his army.

The rare document -- dated Oct. 20, 1812, signed "Nap" in the emperor's hand and written in numeric code -- is up for auction Sunday at France's Fontainebleau Auction House.

The Napoleon code, used only for top-secret letters when the French emperor was far from home, aimed to stop enemies from intercepting French army orders. The code was regularly changed to prevent it from being cracked.

A 'different Napoleon'
Napoleon must have dispatched his strongest horses and riders to carry the news: It only took three days to reach France's interior ministry -- 1,540 miles across Europe.

"This letter is unique. Not only is it all in code, but it's the first time we see this different Napoleon. He went into Moscow in 1812 at the height of his power. He returned profoundly weakened. In Moscow, the Russians had fled days before and burnt down the city. There was no victory for Napoleon, nor were there any provisions for his starving, dying army," says Jean-Christophe Chataignier of the auction house.

The only thing left for the weakened leader was to give the order to burn Russia's government buildings -- coded in the letter as "449, 514, 451, 1365..."

'Incredible insight'
It is evidence of what historians call the beginning of the end of Napoleon's glorious empire, which started in Russia and ended at Waterloo three years later.

Experts: Unbreakable code message found on WWII carrier pigeon

In June 1812, Napoleon's "Grand Army" -- at 600,000 men one of the largest in human history -- confidently entered Russia. But they were woefully unprepared for the harsh weather, the strong Russian defense and the Russian scorched-earth tactics, which left nothing behind to sustain the hungry and freezing French troops.

"This letter is an incredible insight, we never see Napoleon emotively speaking in this way before," says Chataignier. "Only in letters to (his wife) Josephine did he ever express anything near to emotion. Moscow knocked him."

Complete World coverage on NBCNews.com

In the text -- which announces that his commanders are evacuating Moscow -- Napoleon laments his army's plight, asking for assistance to replenish his forces and the ravaged cavalry, which saw thousands of horses die.

In September, 200 years after Russia's victory over Napoleon, the Kremlin held huge celebrations aimed at rousing patriotism among modern Russians. The highlight was a re-enactment of the battle of Borodino -- one of the most damaging clashes for Napoleon's troops -- which saw thousands in Russian and French military uniforms perform before several hundred thousand spectators.

Complete Europe coverage on NBCNews.com

The 1812 victory played an important role in Russia's emergence as a major world power. Until World War I, Napoleon's Russian campaign and the ensuing wars were the largest European military face-off in history.

The letter, which is accompanied by a second decoded sheet, is estimated to fetch up to $19,500.

More world stories from NBC News:

• Leveson report on Rupert Murdoch, son: Evidence suggests 'cover-up'
• ANALYSIS: UN's Palestinian statehood vote is victory for Abbas
• Tobacco industry uses trade pacts to try to snuff out anti-smoking laws
• ANALYSIS: Crisis tests Egyptians' constitution
• Syrians risk lives in battle to protect nation's ancient sites
• Arafat's exhumation: Palestinians' desire for truth might be dashed again
• Chinese paper falls for Onion 'sexiest man alive' spoof

Follow World News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook