France 24 An armed man who took six people hostage in a bank in Le Havre, northern France, surrendered to police on Thursday after releasing his captives, a Reuters witness and police union official said.
The union official said no weapons were used in the arrest of the man, who had released several of the hostages he was holding over the course of Thursday evening.
Bomb squad officers had arrived at the bank, a senior police union official said earlier.
The official, who was in regular contact with officers involved in the operation, said there was a bag possibly containing explosives at the scene.
A police representative said the hostage-taker was a 34-year-old man with a history of mental health problems. The man’s weapon was a handgun, police said.
Two police union sources said the gunman was believed to have Islamist ties.
One union source said the hostage-taker was known to law enforcement authorities and was on a security service watch list.
“We know that he has been radicalised and suffers a serious psychiatric illness,” Yves Lefebvre, head of the SGP Unite police union told Reuters.
A highly-placed police source said the man holding the hostages had made statements in support of the Palestinian cause. He had also asked for a motor scooter and access to social networks, the police source said.
Police cordoned off the area and had urged the public to stay clear of the bank on Boulevard de Strasbourg in the city centre, the local prefecture said.
Le Havre is a town of around 170,000 people on the English channel, about 200 km north-west of Paris. The town’s new mayor is Edouard Philippe, President Emmanuel Macron’s former prime minister who resigned in early July.
(FRANCE 24 with REUTERS)