Pair arrested as driver tries to hit soldiers in French Alps
Posted March 29, 2018 2:15 am.
Last Updated March 29, 2018 9:21 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
PARIS – A man tried but failed to run over several French soldiers while out on a morning jog in southern France, officials said Thursday.
After a brief police manhunt, a man and a woman were later arrested in the Isere region, a police official told AP, speaking on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to media.
The official said that the woman who was arrested in Echirolles, a suburb of Grenoble, was the owner of the car used in the unsuccessful attack. The man who was said to be shouting death threats from his car window was apprehended in his home in Grenoble on suspicion of threatening and charging at the soldiers.
Both are being questioned by police in Grenoble.
No injuries were reported.
French authorities are on high alert after an Islamic extremist shot at police last week returning from jogging in southern France, before he took hostages in a supermarket in an attack that claimed four lives.
In the Thursday morning drama, four soldiers from the 27th Mountain Infantry Brigade were targeted by a car, according the brigade’s chief Colonel Alain Didier.
The suspect first drove around the military barracks in Varces-Allieres-et-Risset, in the southeastern Isere region, shouting at various groups of soldiers, Col. Benoit Brulon, a French Army spokesman, told The Associated Press.
He returned later, at which point he tried to run down some of the soldiers with his car that they managed to dodge. He then a quick getaway.
Brulon said several of the soldiers were questioned by gendarmes in nearby Grenoble where a police inquiry has been opened.
