French special forces evacuated 18 people from a mall near Paris Monday after gunmen attacked a Primark store inside, in what is believed to be an attempt to rob the shop, police said.
Authorities say they have ruled out terrorism as a motive for the incident.
“Around 6:30 am (0430 GMT), three armed criminals went into the Primark store for what we think was initially an attempt at armed robbery,” a police source, who wished to remain anonymous, said of the incident at Villeneuve-la-Garenne.
An employee first alerted her boyfriend of the hold-up around 7 am when she sent him a text message saying they had been taken hostage by two armed men, another source said.
According to police, some 18 Primark employees had subsequently left the store and grouped together in a cantine inside the Qwartz mall, where all other shops had closed up.
It is as yet unclear whether they were taken there by the gunmen or whether they escaped on their own.
They “were evacuated around 10:30, one of them was unwell but no one was injured,” police said, adding security forces were still hunting for the gunmen.
Some reports suggest that one or more of the suspected robbers managed to escape the scene and are currently at large.
Amid the confusion, the police source admitted: “we don’t know whether they are still there.”
Police have stopped all traffic in the area around the Qwartz mall where the Primark store is located.
France is currently in a state of high alert, having experienced a number of deadly Islamist terrorist attacks recently, most notably a series of lethal attacks in Paris this past January that left 17 murdered.
AFP contributed to this report.
Leave a Reply