© Yves Herman / ReutersPolice patrol the Gare du Nord train station.
A video posted on Twitter showed a tightly-packed crowd being held back by train station attendants in the atrium of the station, one of the busiest in the French capital, while an explosion rang out in the background.
The bomb alert came hours after French authorities announced that they had arrested three radicalized French women last week, who "were preparing an imminent, violent act" - thought to be an attack on a train station. The women - described as "fanatics" by Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve - were in possession of a car loaded with gas cylinders, when they were stopped on Sunday near the Notre Dame Cathedral in the heart of the city.
"There are others out there," warned French President Francois Hollande on Friday afternoon from Athens, where he is attending an international summit.
This is the second such incident at Gare du Nord this month. On September 4th, panic spread following rumors of an explosive on a Thalys train - the same high-speed service from Belgium where an Islamist radical attempted to stage a mass shooting last year. In the end police cordoned off a part of the station, and detonated another suspicious package. No one was arrested in connection with that incident.
Dying for video of flying shorts, dirty underwear.
Why not released? You know.
R.C.
P.s., Why are police carrying guns that (from the magazine size) appear to be military rifles like loaded with .308 rounds designed to go through bad guy (first, hopefully) and then through baggage handler and into a baby basket. Military round for distance and if you miss, you can hopefully hit that group of bad guys- maybe two - over there at about 200 yards. (This is why in a crowd a 9 mm pistol with +P Hollow Points should be the most potent carried. If you've got to have submachine guns, get same caliber.)
RC