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Bollène, France: Deranged, armed man holed up in hotel, police on scene

RT
Tue, 19 Jul 2016 13:08 UTC

An armed man has holed up at a hotel in southern France, with police blocking a perimeter of 250 meters around the building. The motives of the man are as yet unknown.

Police, along with emergency services, are currently at the scene near the Formule 1 hotel in the commune of Bollène, Provence.

"A deranged man is holed up in the Formule 1 hotel," a police spokeswoman told Reuters.

The man seems to be armed with a knife and may have an explosive device, a local gendarme officer told Reuters.

The hotel has been evacuated, La Dauphine media outlet reported.

Comment: Another report states a bomb squad from Marseille is on its way. It is apparently not a hostage crisis. The man was thought to have had a row with the manager. If this is the case, we might discount this incident as a high alert security threat. That it has made international news is a comment on the nervous state of France still reeling from the Nice attack, the Paris attack, as well as the recent Bavarian train incident in neighboring Germany. Uptick, uptick. More to come?

Additional information:

The Departmental Operations Center (DOC) has been activated in the prefecture.
Situation still ongoing in Bollène, man supposedly has suspicious bag on him, police are negotiating.
Report that the gendarmerie first went there because the man refused to pay his room. Shortly before 15 hours, he would entrenched in his room, armed with a knife and with a box from which spring 'some wires' said a police source.
Police with emergency services are currently at the scene