An armed man took hostages in a supermarket in southern France on Friday, killing three people and injuring about a dozen others before being shot to death when French police stormed the market, authorities said. French President Emmanuel Macron said all evidence suggested that it was a terror attack—the first one since he became president in May, per the AP. The attacker first fired six shots at police officers on their way back from jogging near the city of Carcassonne on Friday morning, said a police offiical. The officers were not in uniform but were wearing athletic clothes with police insignia. One police officer was shot in the shoulder, but the injury was not serious.
The suspect then went to a Super U supermarket in the nearby small town of Trebes, 60 miles southeast of Toulouse, taking an unknown number of people hostage. In an hours-long standoff, police converged on the scene and authorities blocked roads and urged residents to stay away. Police then stormed the supermarket. Interior Minister Gerard Collomb confirmed that the attacker had been shot dead and three other people were killed. Collomb went to Trebes after talking with Macron, who was at an EU summit in Brussels. Collomb identified the suspect as Redouane Lakdim, 26, a petty criminal and small-time drug dealer who he said was radicalized and under police surveillance. Collomb said Lakdim in the standoff requested the release of the sole surviving assailant of Nov. 13, 2015, attacks in Paris that left 130 people dead.
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