The police intervened on Saturday afternoon in the district of La Défense (Hauts-de-Seine), in the Paris region, because of a suicide which created a major movement of panic in the shopping center of 4 Temps, according to several sources familiar with the matter.
By AFP
IThe trigger was a suicide that occurred in the afternoon, around 5:00 p.m. A person jumped several floors, a source familiar with the matter told AFP. The suicide was confirmed by the viewing of surveillance cameras.
The fall would have caused a huge noise which would have been perceived by passers-by as a detonation, causing panic in this shopping center – one of the largest in France – always very full on Saturday afternoons. On social networks, several amateur videos showed scenes of panic in the Quatre Temps shopping center and on the esplanade of the western Parisian business district.
“We were in the room when agents came to tell us that we had to evacuate,” Jean-Baptiste Zeller, 35, who was in the UGC cinema in the shopping center at the time, told AFP.
“We stayed at the reception, near the checkouts. From what we saw the shopping center was empty, we just saw police in uniform, “said this witness.
“The police services are on site and are securing the scene,” tweeted around 5:30 p.m. the Paris police headquarters, recommending to “avoid” the La Défense sector.
“A police operation is taking place in La Défense. I asked the prefect of police to go there,” added Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin.
Access by public transport to La Défense has been interrupted, said the Hauts-de-Seine prefecture.
