An armed man briefly took an adult hostage at a nursery school south of Paris today.
The intruder, who entered the school in Vitry-sur-Seine on the southern edge of the capital shortly before opening time,freed the hostage after a few hours and later surrendered to police, said Ludovic Monier, a policeman at the scene.
"At 12.10 (11.1am Irish time) the hostage-taker was taken out (of the building) calmly ... without any shots fired," Mr Monier told reporters.
Last month, a 26-year-old man with a record of psychological problems, was shot and arrested by elite police in the southern city of Toulouse after taking several hostages at a bank and claiming to be a member of al-Qaeda.
Toulouse, in the southwestern corner of France, was also the city where an al-Qaeda-inspired gunman, 23-year-old Mohamed Merah, was shot dead by police after killing three soldiers, three Jewish children at a school, and a rabbi.
Reuters
A police official said the man had entered school in Vitry-sur-Seine