Car hits Paris cafe terrace, one dead, several seriously hurt
World
The incident happened less than 10 days before the start of the Olympic Games in the French capital
PARIS (AFP) – A motorist ploughed a car into a cafe terrace in Olympic host city Paris on the evening of July 17, killing one person and seriously injuring several others in a suspected accident, officials told AFP.
The incident happened less than 10 days before the start of the Olympic Games in the French capital.
A source in the state prosecution service who asked not to be named said police later arrested the driver and detained him on suspicion of manslaughter.
A police source earlier said the driver had fled the scene in northern Paris, while a passenger from the vehicle was detained.
A separate source close to the enquiry said the passenger tested positive for drug and alcohol consumption.
Earlier, the police source had said three of the injured people were in a critical condition.
Another police source said the initial hypothesis was that the incident, which happened at around 7.30pm (local time), was a traffic accident.
The dark-coloured Toyota car stood with its bonnet crumpled at the entrance to the Le Ramus bar in the city’s northern 20th district, an AFP reporter saw.
District mayor Eric Pliez told reporters that police had checked there were no explosives in the car.
He said all those injured were customers of the bar.
“We are very upset. This has shaken all of us,” added one of his deputies, Mr Vincent Goulin.
There was a large police presence around the terrace of the bar tucked in behind the world-renowned Pere Lachaise cemetery, the final resting place of the likes of Edith Piaf, Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison.
At least four fire engines were also stationed close by while soldiers patrolled the nearby Gambetta Square.
France is on high alert ahead of the Games, having been the victim of numerous terror attacks in recent years.
The incident comes two days after a soldier was stabbed between the shoulder blades by a 40-year-old man at a major train station in northern Paris.
The soldier, whose life was not in danger, was part of a special military operation to protect sensitive sites in Paris that was deployed following the 2015 Islamist attacks on the satirical Charlie Hebdo newspaper.
