A group of gunmen broke into a Primark store near Paris on Monday, trapping 18 people inside for hours before fleeing and prompting a manhunt.
All 18 people were safely evacuated from the store in a shopping centre in the town of Villeneuve-la-Garenne, according to a regional police official. She said police were now pursuing the assailants.
The three men - one of whom was thought to be an employee of the shop - burst into the Primark store in Villeneuve-la-Garenne early Monday, said a police source who wished to remain anonymous.
At 7am one of the employees sent a text message to a friend saying “we are being held hostage by two armed men”. Police stopped all traffic in the area around the Qwartz mall where the Primark store is located and special forces were dispatched to the scene.
Television images showed helmeted elite police officers entering through a side door of the shopping centre. Police said the shopping centre and surrounding area were closed to the public because of the security operation.
But while security forces initially thought the gunmen were still inside the mall, they realised after searching the premises that the men had escaped.
The suspects “appear to have run away, and the search continues outside the mall,” a source close to the probe said.
The store is in a shopping centre adjacent to the river Seine about six miles north of central Paris.
There was no immediate sign of a political or other motive. The Paris region remains on high alert for terrorist activity after attacks on the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine and a kosher supermarket in January left 20 people dead including the attackers.
