The parcel deposited by a man in the cathedral was married “to an improvised explosive gear, a priori without a firing device,” said the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin.
Le Monde and AFP
The Saint-Etienne Cathedral of Toulouse was evacuated Friday morning in Mass, after a man, always sought, had filed a parcel containing an explosive craft, learned the France-Presse agency (AFP) of concordant sources. The sector has been completed by the police all morning while deminers were dispatched to the scene.
The Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, who reported around 9:30 on twitter a “police operation in downtown Toulouse”, asking to avoid the sector, added nearly forty- Five minutes later that the operation was “finished” and that there was “no victim”.
The suspect always searched
The package was restrained “to an improvised explosive gear, a priori without a firing device” and the individual, who “jostled the sacristan”, is “actively sought after”, he said in End of morning during a statement to the CNEWS chain. He added that the facts had occurred at 8:30 am: “The individual filed a package during the Mass (…), no claim was performed.”
After the incident, the sacristan, jostling while trying to intercept the man, asked the faithful to evacuate the cathedral, which adjoins the prefecture, and alerted the police. “A man entered with a parcel under his arm. I took it for a delivery man. He crossed the nave and deposited the package in front of the stars. He jostled me, he said something And he left, “said Aurélien Dreux at a correspondent of AFP.
The man has deposited “a white package that was between 20 and 25 centimeters wide,” added the abbot Jean-Jacques Rouchi, who celebrated the Mass this Friday morning. “I only realized after that could be an attack. There were only 40 people, it was a weekday,” he said.
In the middle of the morning, the security perimeter has been reduced, after two agents in white combination have entered the cathedral, while a police officer came out with a dog, found a reporter from AFP.
The prefecture announced in the middle of the day that “traffic in the sector of Saint-Etienne is reopened to traffic. The cathedral should be able to be accessible again in the afternoon”, according to a statement.
m. Darmanin recalled the vigilance instructions given to the prefects, as well as police and gendarmerie. The prefect of Haute-Garonne, Etienne Guyot, for his part specified he gave “instructions to the security forces to bring a very particular vigilance to the religious buildings”.