Gunmen on Tuesday attacked a prison van at a motorway toll in northern France, killing at least two prison officers and freeing a convict who had been jailed last week.
President Emmanuel Macron vowed that everything would be done to find those behind the attack as hundreds of members of the security forces were deployed for a manhunt to find the attackers and the inmate who were all still at large.
Two officers killed
Two prison officers were killed in the attack and two others are receiving urgent medical care, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said in a statement.
The incident took place late morning at a road toll in Incarville in the Eure region of northern France.
The inmate was being transported between the towns of Rouen and Evreux in Normandy.
A police source told French news agency AFP that several individuals, who arrived in two vehicles, rammed the police van and then fled.
One of the raiders was wounded
It was not immediately clear how many attackers there were in total.
"Everything is being done to find the perpetrators of this crime," Macron wrote on X.
L’attaque de ce matin, qui a coûté la vie à des agents de l’administration pénitentiaire, est un choc pour nous tous.
— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) May 14, 2024
La Nation se tient aux côtés des familles, des blessés et de leurs collègues.
Tout est mis en œuvre pour retrouver les auteurs de ce crime…
"We will be uncompromising," he added, describing the attack as a "shock".
'All means used'
Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti immediately headed to a crisis meeting at his ministry.
"These are people for whom life counts for nothing. They will be arrested, they will be judged and they will be punished according to the crime they committed," he said.
Both the officers killed were men and they were the first prison officers to be killed in the line of duty since 1992, he added.
Aggravated robbery
Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau named the inmate as Mohamed Amra, born in 1994, saying that last week he had been convicted of aggravated robbery and also charged in a case of abduction leading to death.
The case has been handed to prosecutors from France's office for the fight against organised crime known by their acronym JUNALCO.
Law and order is a major issue in French politics ahead of next month's European elections. The incident sparked fierce reactions from politicians, especially the far right.
(With newswires)
