Around 3,000 passengers were evacuated from Orly, France’s second-busiest airport, on Saturday (March 18) after security forces shot dead a man who tried to seize a soldier’s gun. It forced the evacuation of the airport and put security back in the spotlight in the middle of France’s presidential election campaign.
The man, identified as a 39-year-old radicalized Muslim who was already on police and intelligence services’ radar, had earlier shot and wounded a police officer with an air gun after a routine traffic stop north of Paris, officials said.
After the incident, security services sealed off the terminal and swept for bombs, but no explosives were found. Crowds of passengers waited outside.
No one else was injured at the airport.
Flights were suspended from both airport terminals and some flights were diverted to Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, airport operator ADP said.
But normal flight operations were later said to be resuming, the Paris airport’s operator said.
(Reuters)
