They queued to see the secrets of the Moulin Rouge cabaret, the Elysee palace, a chateau and even the only Nazi concentration camp opened in French territory.
The French Culture Ministry said that more than 12 million people turned out to get a rare look into more than 15,700 national monuments during a special open doors weekend.
About 1,500 people got the chance to look behind the scenes at the Paris night club, renowned for its scantily clad can-can dancers. The management of the Moulin Rouge with its famous red windmill on the roof said it had to turn thousands more away.
About 19,000 people went to President Nicolas Sarkozy’s official residence, 28,000 to the Senate building and even 9,000 to the interior ministry.
In the provinces, about 1,500 people went to the site of the former Struthof concentration camp at Natzwiller in eastern France where thousands died during World War II. Hundreds went to the chateau of the dukes of Epernon at Cadillac near Bordeaux.
Castles, administrative buildings and other monuments across France opened specially for what has become an annual weekend when French heritage is thrown open to the public.
