Armed man takes hostages in South France
He has taken four people hostage in a bank in Toulouse, reports AFP.
The stranger claims to be to be linked to al-Qaeda but the information has not been confirmed yet. He demands to speak to the elite police unit that shot Islamist gunman Mohamed Merah in March 2012 (Frenchman of Algerian origin who committed a series of murders in the south of France).
Merah killed seven people: three pupils of a Jewish school in Toulouse, a rabbi and three soldiers. An elite police unit shot the 24-eyar-old extremist on the night of March 21.
