ROUEN, France: Gunmen on Tuesday attacked a prison van at a motorway toll in northern France, killing at least two prison officers and freeing a convict who had been jailed last week.
President Emmanuel Macron vowed that everything would be done to find those behind the attack as hundreds of members of the security forces were deployed for a manhunt to find the attackers and the inmate who were all still at large.
Two prison officers were killed in the attack and two others are receiving urgent medical care, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said in a statement.
The incident took place late morning at a road toll in Incarville in the Eure region of northern France, a source close to the case added.
The inmate was being transported between the towns of Rouen and Evreux in Normandy.
A police source said several individuals, who arrived in two vehicles, rammed the police van and then fled.
One of them was wounded, the police source said.
It was not immediately clear how many attackers there were in total.
"Everything is being done to find the perpetrators of this crime," Macron wrote on X.
"We will be uncompromising," he added, describing the attack as a "shock".
Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti immediately headed to a crisis cell at his ministry.
"These are people for whom life counts for nothing. They will be arrested, they will be judged and they will be punished according to the crime they committed," he said.
Both the officers killed were men and they were the first prison officers to be killed in the line of duty since 1992, he added.
One of them was married and had two children while the other "left a wife five months pregnant", he said.
"I am frozen with horror at the veritable carnage that took place at the Incarville toll," said Alexandre Rassaert, the head of the Eure region council.
"I hope with all my heart that that the team of killers which carried out this bloody attack will be arrested quickly."
A unit of the GIGN elite police force has been despatched to apprehend the suspects.
Traffic was stopped on the A154 motorway where the incident took place.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on X he had ordered the activation of France's Epervier plan, a special operation launched by the gendarmerie in such situations.
"All means are being used to find these criminals. On my instructions, several hundred police officers and gendarmes were mobilised," he said.
Prosecutor Beccuau named the inmate as Mohamed Amra, born in 1994, saying that last week he had been convicted of aggravated robbery and also charged in a case of abduction leading to death.
The case has been handed to prosecutors from France's office for the fight against organised crime known by their acronym JUNALCO.
Law and order is a major issue in French politics ahead of next month's European elections and the incident sparked fierce reactions from politicians, especially the far right.
"It is real savagery that hits France every day," said Jordan Bardella, the top candidate for the far-right National Rally (RN) which is leading opinion polls for the elections.
Two French prison officers killed in inmate’s escape
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Two French prison officers killed in inmate’s escape
- The incident took place late morning at a road toll in Incarville in the Eure region of northern France
- The inmate was being transported between the towns of Rouen and Evreux in Normandy
Trump downplays importance of Russia reportedly sharing intel with Iran to help it hit US targets
- Critics charge that Trump was giving Russia a break that will provide Moscow with badly needed revenue as it looks to keep funding its war machine
- Ukraine, in the four years since it was invaded by Russia, has received US intelligence to help defend against incoming missiles from Russia as well as to help Kyiv hit certain Russian targets
DORAL, Florida: President Donald Trump said Saturday that it was inconsequential if Russia has provided Iran with information to help Tehran target US military personnel and assets in the Middle East as the week-old war rages.
The president dismissed the import of such information-sharing after he attended the dignified transfer for six Army reservists who were killed in a drone strike in Kuwait the day after the US and Israel launched a war on Iran that has unsettled the global economy.
Trump stopped short of confirming reports by The Associated Press and other news outlets that US intelligence officials believe Russia has provided Iran with such targeting information. But if Moscow is passing on such details, he said Iran was getting little out of it.
“If you take a look at what’s happened to Iran in the last week, if they’re getting information, it’s not helping them much,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One as he flew to Miami, where he’s spending the rest of the weekend.
The president also waved off a question about how Russia assisting Iran in such a way might affect his view of the US-Russia relationship.
“They’d say we do it against them,” Trump responded. “Wouldn’t they say that we do it against them?”
Ukraine, in the four years since it was invaded by Russia, has received US intelligence to help defend against incoming missiles from Russia as well as to help Kyiv hit certain Russian targets.
Downplaying the significance of Russia handing off battlespace intelligence to Iran came after the US Treasury Department announced earlier this week that it was temporarily allowing India to keep buying crude oil and petroleum products from Russia for a month, until April 4.
The administration decision to grant the world’s most populous country a temporary exemption faced bipartisan blowback. Critics charge that Trump was giving Russia a break that will provide Moscow with badly needed revenue as it looks to keep funding its war machine.
Rep. Don Bacon, R-Nebraska, condemned the move, saying in a post on X that “weakness toward Russia is appalling.”
Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., in his own X post directed at Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, also decried the administration’s decision.
“Reverse your decision to lift oil sanctions on Russia. It is traitorous conduct for you to help Russia,” Lieu said. “Meanwhile, Russia is assisting Iran in targeting American troops.”
Trump has decided to give India leeway on oil purchases from Russia as global oil prices surge and investors across sectors worry about how long the Iran war will last.
The waiver for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government followed Trump announcing weeks ago that he was cutting tariffs on India after their officials agreed to reduce its reliance on cheap Russian crude.
India has taken advantage of reduced Russian oil prices as much of the world has sought to isolate Moscow for its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
The price of oil has surged higher and shows no signs of halting a week into a war that the US and Israel launched and has widened through the Middle East as Tehran strikes back. Ships that carry roughly 20 million barrels of oil a day are unable to safely pass through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Arabian Gulf that is bordered on its north side by Iran.
The shipping disruption and damage to key Middle East oil and gas facilities has interrupted supplies from some of the world’s largest oil producers.
Asked whether he was willing to take other steps to ease oil prices, Trump said that “if there were some, I would do it, just to take a little of the pressure off.”
He appeared Saturday to wave off, at least for now, the possibility of tapping the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve, saying the US has a “lot of oil.”
The reserve — a supply of oil that the US government can tap in case of emergencies — held more than 415 million barrels as of the end of last month, up from about 395 million barrels at this time in 2025. In total, when full, the SPR can hold more than 700 million barrels.
“We’ve got a lot of oil. Our country has a tremendous amount,” Trump said. “There’s a lot of oil out there. That’ll get healed very quickly.”
