No arrests made after French hostage scare

  • 14/07/2015
French police officers stand outside a shopping center in Villeneuve-la-Garenne (Reutrers)
French police officers stand outside a shopping center in Villeneuve-la-Garenne (Reutrers)

French police are hunting armed robbers who fled after holding up a store in a shopping mall near Paris, prompting special forces to intervene and seal off the area.

The three men - one of whom was thought to be an employee of the shop - burst into the Primark store in Villeneuve-la-Garenne early on Monday (local time), said a police source who wished to remain anonymous.

An employee first alerted her boyfriend to the hold-up at around 7:00 am  when she sent him a text message saying they had been taken hostage by two armed men, another source said.

The area around the Qwartz mall was shut down, all traffic stopped and other stores in the vicinity closed as special forces rushed to the scene.

The mall was promptly evacuated but according to police, 18 employees had remained inside - some were told to stay put by the gunmen and others had managed to hide on their own.

They "were evacuated around 10:30 am, one of them was unwell but no-one was injured," police said.

But while security forces initially thought the gunmen were still inside the mall, they realised after searching the premises that the men had escaped.

The suspects "appear to have run away, and the search continues outside the mall," a source close to the probe said.

Prosecutors added they did not appear to have fled with any money.

Memories of attacks in January by Islamic extremists who gunned down 17 people in and near Paris - including several who were held hostage in a Jewish supermarket - are still fresh in many minds in France.

France, and the Paris area in particular, remains on high alert with some 7000 soldiers deployed around the country to help police in countering any further attack.

But so far police have indicated Monday's attack was a common armed robbery.

AFP