BRUSSELS, July 26 (Reuters) - The Franco-Swiss airport

of Basel-Mulhouse was evacuated and closed for a short while on

Friday due to a bomb alert, hours before the Olympics opening

ceremony in Paris was due to start, airport authorities said.

"For safety reasons, the terminal had to be evacuated,"

the airport said on its website at the time.

Around midday, the airport said it was reopening and

that flight operations would gradually resume.

An air traffic controller at the airport told Reuters it

was the seventh alert since last October.

An Air France flight to Paris could not take off due to

the bomb alert, an Air France representative told Reuters.

Hours before, vandals targeted France's high-speed TGV

train network with a series of coordinated actions that brought

major disruption to some of the country's busiest rail lines

ahead of the Paris Olympics opening ceremony.