One killed, five wounded in Paris-area shooting France calls a 'racist, terrorist attack'

A gunman killed one person and wounded five others, including a 12-year-old girl, in a series of shootings in the towns of Trappes and neighbouring La Verriere outside Paris on Friday, in what the French presidency has called a “racist, terrorist attack”.

An unidentified 39-year-old man was taken into custody shortly after the attacks, Al Jazeera reported. Trappes is a working-class town about 20km (13 miles) west of the capital.

French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said the attacker fired on a children’s playground, a fuel station and a medical centre, and that the whole episode lasted less than 15 minutes. The gunman used “a military-grade weapon, or at least an automatic weapon”, Nunez said.

Three of the victims, including the 12-year-old girl, suffered life-threatening injuries. The girl, who was shot eight times, was reported in stable condition. The person killed was of African origin, and a wounded man of North African origin was in critical condition.

National antiterrorism prosecutors opened an investigation into murder in connection with a terrorist enterprise, President Emmanuel Macron said after visiting Trappes. Investigators were examining whether the attack was racially or religiously motivated. The suspect’s flat was found rigged with three gas canisters and electric wires connected to a timer.

Trappes Mayor Ali Rabeh said the gunman appeared to have fired at random from a moving car, Hiru News reported in its Sinhala summary.

A note on the two accounts. Hiru’s filing, which reached Sri Lankan readers first, gives four people wounded where Al Jazeera gives five, and describes a sports ground among the sites fired on where Nunez specified a children’s playground. Hiru also does not mention the arrest, the booby-trapped flat or the Elysee’s characterisation of the attack. The figures and detail above follow Al Jazeera’s fuller account.

Sources: One killed as Elysee calls Paris area shooting ‘racist, terrorist attack’ — Al Jazeera, October 23, One dead in shooting near Paris — Hiru News, October 23 (Sinhala).