A MANHUNT was under way in Paris today after a gunman burst into the offices of Libération, a daily newspaper, and shot a photographer, leaving him in a critical condition. A second shooting occurred shortly afterwards outside the head office of Société Générale, a French bank, at La Défense business district to the west of the capital.
The shootings followed an incident at a French television station, BFM TV, three days ago, when an armed man entered the premises and threatened to shoot. Although it was unclear whether the different attacks were connected, police units were immediately sent to positions outside all the main French media groups in the capital. A police helicopter hovered low over Paris, searching for the gunman, after reports that he had hijacked a car and been dropped off near the Champs-Elysées, the capital’s best-known avenue.
By mid-afternoon in Paris there was still little information about the suspect. He was described as bald, in his 40s, wearing jeans and a khaki overcoat. Although the French media and police never refer to the ethnic profile of a suspect, there was no hint that the man being sought was Islamist or linked to an al-Qaeda terror cell. He appeared to be acting alone.
France has grown used over the years to terrorist alerts, and has had its share of lone, troubled gunmen too. In May, for example, a man shot himself dead in front of schoolchildren in a Paris primary school. But the French are also wary about drawing over-hasty conclusions.
When three soldiers were shot dead in south-west France shortly before the 2012 presidential election, early commentary suggested that the suspect could have neo-Nazi links. It was only after he went on to massacre three primary pupils and a rabbi at a Jewish school in Toulouse that it became clear that the gunman, Mohamed Merah, later killed in a shoot-out with police, had ties to al-Qaeda.
The suspect today made no effort to hide his face, and seemed to have been captured on CCTV waiting patiently for a Paris tram. Flimsy as such evidence is, this suggests somebody acting with methodical calm, not on impulse. A few months ago, a young man linked to the far left died after a fight with skinheads linked to the shadowy fringes of the extreme right. For her part, Marine Le Pen, of the National Front, which is attempting to make itself a respectable political outfit, was quick to condemn today’s shootings.
While the gunman remains on the loose in Paris, the police are keeping cautious, and media groups in particular are on alert. The Libération website was also hacked during the day, after the shooting. Nicolas Demorand, the paper’s editor, described it as “very serious” for democracy when the media becomes the target. With President François Hollande away on a trip to Israel and the Palestinian territories, it was Manuel Valls, the Socialist interior minister, who visited the offices of Libération, warning Parisians that the man remains both armed and dangerous.
