Hostage taking in Issy-les-Moulineaux near Paris: a man holed up in his restaurant where he is holding several employees

A man armed with a knife is holed up in his father's restaurant in Issy-les-Moulineaux (Hauts-de-Seine), with “three or four employees”and the police are on site, a police source told AFP on Saturday.

He locked himself in this restaurant a few dozen meters from the Paris ring road, southwest of the capital, just before 1 p.m., this source also indicated.

He retains “three or four employees”but there is neither “clientele nor public”said the source. A mediator from the BRI (Research and Intervention Brigade, elite unit of the Paris police) is “committed, due to the person concerned’s desire to commit suicide”. He is not known to the courts.

An important device deployed

A large police force surrounds the restaurant, a pizzeria, AFP journalists noted.

“Intervention in progress, let the security and emergency forces work”wrote the police headquarters on “incident in progress”.

On AFPTV images, we can see numerous police vehicles and armed, helmeted law enforcement officers blocking the streets and establishing a security perimeter in the neighborhood.