BREAKING: Police open fire at Paris train station

From AFP via the French edition of The Local

A police officer opened fire at around 9.20am at the Bibliothèque François-Mitterrand station in the 13th arrondissement of Paris on Tuesday morning after a woman reportedly threatened to detonate a bomb.

A police source told French media that the woman “refused to obey police orders and threatened to blow herself up, a police officer used his firearm once”. The woman was wounded in the stomach and is in a critical condition. Police sources report that no explosives were found.

According to witnesses the woman, who was completely veiled, shouted “Allahu akbar” (God is Greatest) and “made threats”.

French media reported that the woman boarded the RER C train in Val-de-Marne and made threats, before police halted the train at the Bibliothèque François-Mitterand station.

Police said that an investigation has been opened into “threats, death threats and intimidation of a public official to prevent him from carrying out his duties”. A separate investigation has also been opened by the police watchdog the IGPN, as is standard when an officer discharged a weapon in a public place.

Axel Ronde, police spokesperson, has said: “The police officers made the right decision. The person was extremely determined to take action and given the determination, my colleagues had no other choice, to avoid being hit by an explosion, than to neutralise her by shooting her with a firearm.”