How four women were freed in a hostage drama in Toulouse

A teenager is being questioned by police after taking four women hostage at a bar on the outskirts of the southern French city of Toulouse.

Published: 8 May 2019 07:35 CEST

How four women were freed in a hostage drama in Toulouse

Police in Blagnac just outside Toulouse. Photo: Pascal Pavani/AFP

The women were freed “safe and sound”, officials said.

The 17-year-old hostage-taker remained holed up alone in the establishment in the north-west Blagnac suburb of the city for a couple of hours afterwards before finally being arrested following protracted negotiations, Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said on Twitter.

The teen, “who is nearly 18, has a police record for incidents of violence, notably against police officers, for robbery, and also for participating in December in a 'yellow vest' (anti-government) protest during which he was arrested,” Toulouse chief prosecutor Dominique Alzeari earlier told a news conference.

He was not “someone who was classed as dangerous” previously, he said.

The gunman, who was not identified publicly, burst into the bar in the afternoon, firing two shots and allegedly warning he would fire on police if they approached, Alzeari said.

He left a letter at his home “in which he seemed fairly depressive, or at least worried about his state of health, and he made mention of the 'yellow vest' movement but stating that the act he was about to commit would not go beyond what turned out to be not so impressive,” he said.

The mayor's office in Blagnac said earlier there was “no suspicion of a terrorist motive” in the incident, an evaluation shared by police.

The gunman released the female owner of the bar first, then a short time later the three women who some witnesses said included bar staff.

A delivery man who said he knew the father of the gunman told media outside the police cordon at the scene that the teen, named “Yanis”, was a local resident from a nearby downmarket neighbourhood.

He said police had brought the mother to the scene, apparently to help with negotiations.

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The French Jewish community, the third largest in the world, has for months been on edge in the face of a growing number of attacks and desecrations of memorials.

“National police in Rouen neutralised early this morning an armed individual who clearly wanted to set fire to the city’s synagogue,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Police responded at 6.45 am to reports of “fire near the synagogue”, a police source said.

A source close to the case told AFP the man “was armed with a knife and an iron bar, he approached police, who fired. The individual died”.

“It is not only the Jewish community that is affected. It is the entire city of Rouen that is bruised and in shock,” Rouen Mayor Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol wrote on X.

He made clear there were no other victims other than the attacker.

Two separate investigations have been opened, one into the fire at the synagogue and another into the circumstances of the death of the individual killed by the police, Rouen prosecutors said.

Such an investigation by France’s police inspectorate general is automatic whenever an individual is killed by the police.

The man threatened a police officer with a knife and the latter used his service weapon, said the Rouen prosecutor.

The dead man was not immediately identified, a police source said.

Asked by AFP, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office said that it is currently assessing whether it will take up the case.

France has the largest Jewish community of any country after Israel and the United States, as well as Europe’s largest Muslim community.

There have been tensions in France in the wake of the October 7th attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel, followed by the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Red hand graffiti was painted onto France’s Holocaust Memorial earlier this week, prompted anger including from President Emmanuel Macron who condemned “odious anti-Semitism”.

“Attempting to burn a synagogue is an attempt to intimidate all Jews. Once again, there is an attempt to impose a climate of terror on the Jews of our country. Combating anti-Semitism means defending the Republic,” Yonathan Arfi, the president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF). wrote on X.

France was hit from 2015 by a spate of Islamist attacks that also hit Jewish targets. There have been isolated attacks in recent months and France’s security alert remains at its highest level.