LYON: Police in France were on Saturday hunting a suspect following a blast in a pedestrian street in the heart of Lyon that lightly wounded 13 people two days ahead of hotly contested European Parliament elections.
President Emmanuel Macron called the Friday evening explosion, from a package believed to have been packed with shrapnel, an “attack” and sent interior minister Christophe Castaner to Lyon.
Police issued an appeal for witnesses on Twitter as they sought the man believed to be in his early 30s, who was picked up by security cameras on a mountain bicycle immediately before the explosion.
An image of the suspect, wearing light-colored shorts and a longsleeved dark top, was posted. He was described as “dangerous.”
Justice minister Nicole Belloubet told BFM television it was too soon to say whether the blast was a “terrorist act.”
The case was nonetheless handed to the Paris prosecutor for anti-terrorism that deal with all terrorist cases.
The number of wounded stood at 13 people, with 11 taken to hospitals. None of the injuries was life-threatening but included eight women and a 10-year-old girl as well as four men.
A police source said the package contained “screws or bolts.” It had been placed in front of a bakery near a busy corner of two crowded streets at around 17:30 p.m. (1530 GMT).
District mayor Denis Broliquier said “the charge was too small to kill,” and an administrative source told AFP it was a “relatively weak explosive charge” that was triggered at a distance.
The blast occurred on a narrow strip of land between the Saone and Rhone rivers in the historic center of the southeast city. The area was evacuated and cordoned off by police.
“There was an explosion and I thought it was a car crash,” said Eva, a 17-year-old student who was about 15 meters (50 feet) from the blast site.
“There were bits of electric wire near me, and batteries and bits of cardboard and plastic. The windows were blown out,” he said.
“I was working, serving customers, and all of a sudden there was a huge ‘boom’,” said Omar Ghezza, a baker who works nearby.
“We thought it had something to do with renovation work. But in fact it was an abandoned package,” he said.
France has been on high alert following a wave of deadly terror attacks since 2015 which have killed more than 250 people.
“It’s an area in the very center of Lyon, a major street,” the city’s deputy mayor in charge of security, Jean-Yves Secheresse, told BFM television.
“These areas are highly secured, the police are continually present,” as were patrols by soldiers deployed in a long-running anti-terror operation, he said.
Lyon is the third-biggest city in Francewith extensive suburbs and a poplation of 2.3 million.
The most recent package bomb in France dates back to December 2007, when an explosion in front of a law office in Paris killed one person and injured another. Police never found who carried out that attack.
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French police hunt suspect after Lyon bomb ‘attack’
French police hunt suspect after Lyon bomb ‘attack’
- Police issued an appeal for witnesses on Twitter as they sought the man believed to be in his early 30s
- Justice minister Nicole Belloubet told BFM television it was too soon to say whether the blast was a “terrorist act”
US judge blocks Trump admin from detaining refugees in Minnesota
MINNEAPOLIS: A US federal judge temporarily blocked the administration of President Donald Trump Wednesday from detaining refugees in Minnesota awaiting permanent resident status and ordered the release of those in detention.
Trump has sent thousands of federal immigration agents to the Democratic state as part of a sweeping crackdown that has sparked outrage over two civilian deaths at the hands of officers.
Authorities launched a program this month to re-examine the legal status of the approximately 5,600 refugees in Minnesota who have not yet been given green cards.
In his order Wednesday, US District Judge John Tunheim said that the Trump administration could continue to enforce immigration laws and review refugees’ status, but that it must do so “without arresting and detaining refugees.”
“Refugees have a legal right to be in the United States, a right to work, a right to live peacefully — and importantly, a right not to be subjected to the terror of being arrested and detained without warrants or cause in their homes or on their way to religious services or to buy groceries,” Tunheim wrote.
“At its best, America serves as a haven of individual liberties in a world too often full of tyranny and cruelty. We abandon that ideal when we subject our neighbors to fear and chaos.”
The order drew a quick rebuke from White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, a powerful figure who leads Trump’s hard-line immigration policy.
“The judicial sabotage of democracy is unending,” Miller wrote on X.
Tunheim’s order requires any refugee detained under the Minnesota status review, known as Operation PARRIS, to be “immediately released from custody.”
Refugees awaiting their permanent resident status “have undergone rigorous background checks and vetting, been approved by multiple federal agencies for entry, been given permission to work, received support from the government, and been resettled in the United States,” Tunheim wrote.
“These individuals were admitted to the country, have followed the rules, and are waiting to have their status adjusted to lawful permanent residents of the United States.”
Trump has sent thousands of federal immigration agents to the Democratic state as part of a sweeping crackdown that has sparked outrage over two civilian deaths at the hands of officers.
Authorities launched a program this month to re-examine the legal status of the approximately 5,600 refugees in Minnesota who have not yet been given green cards.
In his order Wednesday, US District Judge John Tunheim said that the Trump administration could continue to enforce immigration laws and review refugees’ status, but that it must do so “without arresting and detaining refugees.”
“Refugees have a legal right to be in the United States, a right to work, a right to live peacefully — and importantly, a right not to be subjected to the terror of being arrested and detained without warrants or cause in their homes or on their way to religious services or to buy groceries,” Tunheim wrote.
“At its best, America serves as a haven of individual liberties in a world too often full of tyranny and cruelty. We abandon that ideal when we subject our neighbors to fear and chaos.”
The order drew a quick rebuke from White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, a powerful figure who leads Trump’s hard-line immigration policy.
“The judicial sabotage of democracy is unending,” Miller wrote on X.
Tunheim’s order requires any refugee detained under the Minnesota status review, known as Operation PARRIS, to be “immediately released from custody.”
Refugees awaiting their permanent resident status “have undergone rigorous background checks and vetting, been approved by multiple federal agencies for entry, been given permission to work, received support from the government, and been resettled in the United States,” Tunheim wrote.
“These individuals were admitted to the country, have followed the rules, and are waiting to have their status adjusted to lawful permanent residents of the United States.”
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