Armed man takes hostages in French bank

A gunman took six people hostage in a bank in northern France on Thursday and was still holding two by late evening, police sources and media said.

An elite police tactical unit was at the scene in the port of Le Havre, police said, and a bomb disposal squad had also been deployed, according to one of the union officials.

French broadcaster BFMTV reported that a police negotiator had made contact with the assailant.

The 34-year-old man with a history of mental health problems was armed with a handgun and initially took six people, a national police representative told Reuters.

But four were subsequently released, according to French media and Denis Jacob of the Alternative police trade union. The fifth hostage has been released , a police trade union official said, leaving one hostage still being held.

Yves Lefebvre, head of another police union, SGP Unite, said the hostage-taker in Le Havre, a town of around 170,000 people on the English channel, was known to law enforcement authorities and on a security service watch list.

“We know that he has been radicalised and suffers a serious psychiatric illness,” he said.

Another source, a senior police official, said the man had spoken in support of the Palestinian cause. He had requested a motor scooter plus access to social media, the official added.

Police cordoned off the area round the bank, on Boulevard de Strasbourg, a wide thoroughfare in the centre of Le Havre with a tramline running down the middle.

Reuters