A MOTORIST PLOUGHED a vehicle into a cafe terrace in Olympic host city Paris this evening, killing one person and seriously injuring several others, officials have said, suggesting the incident was a traffic accident.
The incident struck less than 10 days before the start of the Olympic Games in the French capital.
A police source who asked not to be named said that the driver fled the scene in northern Paris while a passenger from the vehicle was detained.
A separate source close to the enquiry said the passenger tested positive for drug and alcohol consumption.
Earlier, the police source had said three of the injured people were in a critical condition, although it was not clear if that included the person who died.
Another police source said the initial hypothesis was that the incident, which happened at around 7:30 pm (6.30 pm Irish time), was a traffic accident.
France is on high-alert ahead of the Games having been the victim of numerous terror attacks in recent years.
The incident comes two days after a soldier was stabbed between the shoulder blades by a 40-year-old man at a major train station in northern Paris.
The soldier, whose life was not in danger, was part of a special military operation to protect sensitive sites in Paris that was deployed following the 2015 Islamist attacks on the satirical Charlie Hebdo newspaper.
An AFP reporter said there was a large police presence around the terrace at the Le Ramus bar tucked in behind the world-renowned Pere Lachaise cemetery, the final resting place of the likes of Edith Piaf, Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison.
At least four fire engines were also stationed close by while soldiers patrolled the nearby Gambetta Square.
A waiter at another cafe around 200 metres away said he saw the car come past “at breakneck speed” and then heard a loud noise.
The car “went the wrong way down a one-way street and ploughed” into the terrace, added the waiter, who has worked in that street for three years and spoke on condition of anonymity.
He said he approached the crash site and saw people fleeing and a body.
“These are colleagues, they’re neighbours, I know them,” he said with tears in his eyes.
“It’s a calm street, nothing ever happens here.”
He said police arrived “very, very quickly” on the scene.
He said he saw two women trying to treat the victims.
During the Olympics there will be 35,000 police officers and 18,000 soldiers providing security for the Games.
From 5:00 am tomorrow until the opening ceremony on 26 July, a special anti-terrorism security perimeter will be activated around the river Seine in Paris.
More than 300,000 spectators are expected to watch the opening ceremony along the banks of the Seine – the first time ever that the Games’ curtain raiser will be held outside of a stadium.
Despite a “resurgence” of the terrorist threat throughout France, national anti-terrorist prosecutor Olivier Christen yesterday said that the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris “are not the subject of specific targeting by international terrorist organisations”.
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