French school hostage taking ends without incident: police

PARIS - Agence France-Presse

French gendarmes work on the scene where ten people were injured when a gunman opened fire on a discotheque, Le Valmos, around 2:30am (GMT), in the northern French town of Bertry, near Cambrai, on July 8, 2012. AFP Photo

An armed man took a parent hostage at a French school today in a southeastern Paris suburb but released his captive after negotiations and was then overpowered by police, a police source said.
 
The incident in Vitry-sur-Seine started at around 0500 GMT and the man initially held four children but released them afterwards at the school, which is being used as a leisure centre during the holidays, police said.
 
The hostage was released safe and sound.
 
"The (elite police unit) RAID succeeded in freeing the hostage during negotiations," a police source said. Another source said police subsequently arrested the hostage taker.
 
A judicial source said the man had "made incoherent statements and expressed a desire to die", during negotiations, adding that the hostage taker had "at no point been threatening" with the parent held captive.