MARSEILLE Police said yesterday that they over powered a drug addict armed with a shotgun who took children hostage at a nursery school in Marseille.
The 29 year old man, a self described AIDS victim, was detained after holding the children and four adults for 11/2 hours in the centre of the city. Some 90 children were in the school when the man, firing two shots in the air, entered the building believing, according to police, that he was being sought by the authorities.
School staff managed to evacuate 60 children without the man seeing them.