Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
ONE POLICE OFFICER has been killed and two others wounded in a shooting on Paris’s famed Champs Elysees, just days ahead of France’s presidential election.
France’s interior ministry said the gunman was killed after opening fire on the officers at around 9pm (8pm Irish time) on the boulevard.
Anti-terror prosecutors have opened an investigation. The so-called Islamic State group has claimed responsibility.
“The attacker arrived by car and got out. He opened fire on a police car with an automatic weapon, killing one of the police officers and trying to attack others while running,” a police source told AFP, asking not be named.
The shopping street in the heart of the city has been blocked by armed officers and nearby metro stations have been closed.
Witnesses recounted scenes of panic as people ran for cover and sought shelter.
“We had to hide our customers in the basement,” Choukri Chouanine, manager of a restaurant near the site of the shooting, told AFP, saying there was “lots of gunfire”.
Dozens of vehicles from the emergency services were sent to the area, where a helicopter was also deployed.
French President Francois Hollande said that the shooting was suspected to be “of a terrorist nature”. He promised “absolute vigilance” ahead of the weekend election.
Extremist
Two police officials said the assailant who shot the officers had been flagged as an extremist, according to the Associated Press.
The officials had no other details about the attacker, the news agency reported. They spoke on condition of anonymity to share information about the ongoing investigation.
It’s reported that a raid has taken place at the home of the attacker.
In comments to the media at the White House, US President Donald Trump said the incident “looks like another terrorist attack,” and sent his condolences to France.
France is in a state of emergency and at its highest possible level of alert since a string of terror attacks that began in 2015, and which have killed over 230 people.
Thousands of troops and armed police have been deployed to guard tourist spots such as the Champs Elysees or other potential targets like government buildings and religious sites.
The shooting comes just two days after police arrested two men in southern Marseille with weapons and explosives, who were suspected of preparing an attack to disrupt the first-round of the presidential election on Sunday.
Aides to a number of the candidates said they had halted campaigning in the wake of the attack.
With reporting from AFP and AP.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
A person I know recently had someone throw several bags of litter into her field, so she went through the bags and found an old bank statement thrown out by the perpetrator, sickened to be that person
He should throw it back into the dirty tramps own garden, minus the bags
She reported it to the litter warden, person was Lithuanian which makes it worse that they come here and litter
Yea she came the whole way from Lithuania to dump her rubbish.Ryanair and their cheap flights have a lot to answer for
And take a large crap in a bag and donate that too
One time, I was on my bike stopped at traffic lights when a kid in the car beside me threw an empty packet of crisps out of the window so picked it up, handed it back to him and politely asked him to put it in the bin when he got home. He threw the bag back out and quickly rolled the window up while his mother looked at me like I’d 10 heads lol. Never again, you can’t reason with knuckleheads.
@Super Ted: Should have smashed the window and handed it back in again :)
Without doubt, it depends how big they are !!
Yes I would, and have. Terrible fly tipping around where I live, but even when these yobbos are caught, they get away with a slap on the wrist. All back to lack of enforcement again, as with everything else.
I’d definitely be throwing daggers if I seen but these days you would get a smack if you intervene in someone’s business but yes maybe ring guards if it was big level of dumping
Those that would do this are obviously pretty Neanderthal anyhow and have a very low empathy for their fellow citizens so a direct confrontation would likely result in a ‘f**k off ,mind your own business’ reply. Hopefully with the wider use of dash cams and hidden cameras at areas where littering occurs more culprits will be caught.
Depends on the degree, I have engaged with someone trying to throw large amounts of waste into a ditch and after being pawned off informed both the landowner and Gardai with the culprits car and reg number. Alternatively I have done nothing but stare at someone like a gombeen for throwing litter on the footpath.
I’d give them the biggest frowning of their life
Where’s the option for “Put it in a bin”?
The State is supposed to enforce the law ,stop trying to get the citizens to do the work of the government
@Ian James Burgess: The Government, works for the public and is funded by the public. You as a citizen, have a say on how things work, with your vote and taxes you pay. So If someone, fouls public areas and you have to pay too have it cleaned. It affects you, me and the Country. I won’t charge you, for that education and the free education you got hasn’t worked either?
Tidy towns people do a lot of voluntary cleaning up too. It’s not all about the lucrative contracts.
I’d trash talk them.
Yes, have done in the past and would again. Littering is disgusting.
And I most certainly saw it to stupid dog owners who don’t clean up their mess after them. It’s absolutely disgusting.
I particularly like the ones who pick it up in a plastic bag and then a few minutes later throw it again.
The animals that litter aren’t for changing in my opinion so I just pick it up on my road. One evening a fella threw a coffee cup out of his car window and nearly hit me with it while I was cleaning up. Let’s just rise above it. They keep littering, we keep picking it up.. don’t let the maggots win !
No, definitely not, none of my business.
This is what happens when the state hands over vital social services to private business for profiteering who then price the services out of the range of ordinary working class families and those on the lower end of the socio economic spectrum.
Once the state abnegates its environmental responsibility in that regard then it has no right to interfere through the imposition of fines and penalties to bolster private enterprise coffers.
Let the private operators clean up the mess. After all it is their responsibility now.
Personal responsibility or parental responsibility isn’t your thing, is it?
Eh…… ya you do have a right to say something to people. What makes you think you don’t have that right?
@Chris Finn:
Why?
Who made me a representative for some private refuse collection company?
Why should the public do their dirty work?
Emmet are you being serious ? Do you throw rubbish on the floor in work ?.. after all it’s the cleaners job .. they’re getting paid to do it …
@Suzie Sunshine:
I never throw rubbish anywhere Suzie. I respect the environment. But it’s not my job to police society for private business.
Have you know pride in your Area
Us drivers and Irish rail staff are told not to confront people who litter of vandalise property for personal safety reasons. How many people have been arrested for anti social behaviour on our public transport? 100% tolerance from government agencies.
Happens all the time here in Bulgaria. Some don’t know how to clean up after themselves when picnicing in the countryside.
In cities, towns and villages there are communal bins all over the place, taxes pay for them, and you still get littering.
But people here will pick it up and put it in bins, there’s a good sense of community and civic duty.
Probably a throwback to Communist times.
@Dave Doyle: A lot of wind around too, are the bins open or closed?
@Stephen murphy: There are lids, but rarely used. Lots of gypsies root through the bins every day.
One of the consequences of privatised waste management rather than through taxation of one type or other is folk opt in or in this case opt out.
,in the case of fly tippers of different scales in both urban and especially in remote locations in the countryside
I was following a van once when something flew out of the window and hit my windscreen. It was a dirty nappy. I blew the horn really loudly and then when we pulled up up a junction a couple of gorillas got out and came towards me. Luckily there was no-one behind me so reversed and got enough enough space to flip round and get out of it. Travellers. Apart from that for years farmers used flung their rubbish into the streams “ah sure the flood will take it away”. Most of it ended up in the trees. The bottom 4ft of Lough Gill is plastic rubbish. At least now things have improved a bit.
This is a country that has to put bars across the apertures of the few public bins, something I’ve never seen in other countries, to stop people dumping their household waste in. Of course in other countries waste disposal is paid for through your taxes and rates, unlike here, where it’s a bewildering maze of charges and weights and so on so that might have something to do with it. Makes it darn harder to empty the car bin anyway which was my point.
Look, I have never seen anybody dumping rubbish but surely its up to the local council to check on this instead of asking people to spy for them. Its their job to police areas. Many people are unable to pay to have rubbish removed and I think thats a lot of the problem.
ANyway agree with other posters if it’s an egregious case I’d have a word if they didn’t look too psychopathic, knowing I’ll be told to F off nine times out of ten. Otherwise just pick it up and put it in a nearby bin (if there’s any). WOuldn’t bother with cigarette butts or biodegradeable things like apple cores. For some reason people in Communist or former Communist countries seem less inclined to litter or maybe it’s that they have more people picking it up.
have your say