France Hostage Situation

Three people were killed in southwestern France on Friday when a gunman held up a car, opened fire on police and then took hostages in a supermarket, screaming "Allahu Akbar".

The ISIS said today that two assailants who stormed a church in France and killed an elderly priest were its "soldiers," an ISIS-linked news agency reported.

French President Francois Hollande said today that two men who attacked a church and slit the throat of a priest had "claimed to be from Daesh", using the Arabic name for the ISIS.

Two attackers killed a priest with a blade and seriously wounded another hostage in a church in northern France on Tuesday before being shot dead by French police.

The Vatican today condemned the "barbarous killing" of a priest in a French church, saying Pope Francis was horrified by the news.

There is no hostage situation in Nice where dozens of people were killed in the French Riviera city when a truck ploughed into a crowd on France's Bastille Day national holiday, a spokesman for the French interior ministry said on Thursday.

Armed men who took hostages on Tuesday in the northern French town of Roubaix appeared to have no link to the November 13 attacks by Islamist militants in Paris but were probably planning a robbery, police sources said on Tuesday.

The hostage situation at a post office near Paris has come to an end, and the gunman has been arrested, news agency Agence France Presse quoted the police as saying.

A gunman took two women hostage in a jewellery store in the southern French city of Montpellier on Friday before giving himself up, officials said, adding the incident had no link to the Islamist violence around Paris.

French security forces struggled with two rapidly developing hostage-taking situations Friday, one northeast of Paris where two terror suspects were holed up with a hostage in a printing plant and the other an attack on a kosher market in Paris.

French anti-terrorist police surrounded a small northern town and helicopters hovered overhead after at least one person was taken hostage in a print works by two men believed to have carried out an attack on a Paris satirical journal.

Three people were killed in southwestern France on Friday when a gunman held up a car, opened fire on police and then took hostages in a supermarket, screaming "Allahu Akbar".

The ISIS said today that two assailants who stormed a church in France and killed an elderly priest were its "soldiers," an ISIS-linked news agency reported.

French President Francois Hollande said today that two men who attacked a church and slit the throat of a priest had "claimed to be from Daesh", using the Arabic name for the ISIS.

Two attackers killed a priest with a blade and seriously wounded another hostage in a church in northern France on Tuesday before being shot dead by French police.

The Vatican today condemned the "barbarous killing" of a priest in a French church, saying Pope Francis was horrified by the news.

There is no hostage situation in Nice where dozens of people were killed in the French Riviera city when a truck ploughed into a crowd on France's Bastille Day national holiday, a spokesman for the French interior ministry said on Thursday.

Armed men who took hostages on Tuesday in the northern French town of Roubaix appeared to have no link to the November 13 attacks by Islamist militants in Paris but were probably planning a robbery, police sources said on Tuesday.

The hostage situation at a post office near Paris has come to an end, and the gunman has been arrested, news agency Agence France Presse quoted the police as saying.

A gunman took two women hostage in a jewellery store in the southern French city of Montpellier on Friday before giving himself up, officials said, adding the incident had no link to the Islamist violence around Paris.

French security forces struggled with two rapidly developing hostage-taking situations Friday, one northeast of Paris where two terror suspects were holed up with a hostage in a printing plant and the other an attack on a kosher market in Paris.

French anti-terrorist police surrounded a small northern town and helicopters hovered overhead after at least one person was taken hostage in a print works by two men believed to have carried out an attack on a Paris satirical journal.