WORLD> Europe
French cash stunt scrapped as huge crowd gathers
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-11-14 20:34

PARIS: A French Internet company that planned to throw envelopes of cash to passers-by from a bus stop had to cancel the publicity stunt for security reasons after thousands of people turned up, police said on Saturday.

About 5,000 people gathered near the Eiffel Tower in Paris, with groups spilling into neighbouring streets and bursting through crowd barriers before the planned handout of banknotes by the online marketing company Mailorama.fr.

"Given the serious traffic problems noted in the Champ de Mars area and significant crowd movements, the police requested the organisers not to go ahead with this distribution of money," a police spokesman said.