(Paris) A car crashed into the terrace of a café in the 20th arrondissement of Paris on Wednesday, killing one person and injuring six, with a police source saying they were “at this stage” considering it was an accident.
The driver of the vehicle was arrested in the evening and taken into custody, according to the Paris prosecutor’s office.
The incident took place around 7:30 p.m. (1:30 p.m. Eastern Time) on Wednesday, nine days before the start of the Paris Olympics, on the terrace of the Le Ramus bar, on the calm and peaceful avenue du Père-Lachaise, near the famous Parisian cemetery of the same name.
One person died, according to a police source and the prosecution. Among the six injured, three were in absolute emergency and three in relative emergency, these sources specified.
PHOTO JOHNNY COTTON, REUTERS
The incident occurred around 7:30 p.m. (1:30 p.m. Eastern Time), less than 10 days before the opening of the Olympic Games.
The hypothesis of a “road accident” is “preferred at this stage”, a police source told AFP.
The driver was taken into custody for “involuntary manslaughter, involuntary injury by the driver and endangerment,” the prosecutor’s office said. The investigation has been entrusted to the Accident Judicial Processing Service (STJA).
Customers on the terrace
According to the prosecution, there was only one arrest, the driver of the vehicle.
At this stage, it has not been established that there was a passenger in the car, the prosecution said.
Police sources and those close to the investigation had indicated earlier in the evening that a person, a passenger in the vehicle, had been arrested and that he had tested positive for narcotics and alcohol.
PHOTO IAN LANGSDON, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
The vehicle, a dark-coloured Toyota, was still at the entrance to the bar, its bonnet completely folded, an AFP journalist noted. A red and gold tarpaulin had been erected in front of the terrace, hiding the tables and the car.
At least four fire trucks were also nearby and soldiers from the Sentinelle anti-terrorist patrol unit were on duty on Place Gambetta nearby.
The police made sure that there were no explosives in the vehicle, the mayor of the 20th arrondissement, Eric Pliez, told the press near the scene of the tragedy.
“All the injured are customers”, “people on the terrace, because the weather is nice today”, he commented, visibly moved.
A psychological unit has been set up at the district town hall, where “the 23 people who witnessed the scene and are in shock will be given priority,” said one of his deputies, Vincent Goulin.
The car “drove” into the terrace
The waiter at a café 200 metres away was on his terrace. He saw the car go by “at full speed” and heard a loud noise. The car “jumped the no entry sign and sped off”, said the waiter, who has worked on the avenue for three years.
He said he approached and saw people running away and a body. “They’re colleagues, they’re neighbors, I know them after all,” he told AFP, tears in his eyes.
“It’s a quiet street, nothing ever happens,” he confided on condition of anonymity, specifying that the police arrived “very quickly.”
A couple in their fifties were also on the terrace. “We were coming out of a funeral, we stopped to have a drink” and then “the car arrived and it hit behind us”, described the man. “It went into the window with the people and everything!” At the time, “we just heard a loud noise”, he said.
Although the theory of an attack was not favoured “at this stage” by investigators on Wednesday evening, this tragedy recalls the attacks of 13 November 2015, some of which targeted terraces in eastern Paris.
These events come nine days before the opening of the Olympic Games, for which some 35,000 police and gendarmes and 18,000 French soldiers will be mobilized on average each day.
From Thursday, at 5 a.m., and until July 26, the internal security and counterterrorism perimeter (SILT) will be activated in Paris around the banks of the Seine, in preparation for the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games.
Some 326,000 spectators are expected on July 26 to attend the opening ceremony on the Seine, the first in the history of the Games to take place outside a sports venue.
The Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games “are not specifically targeted by international terrorist organizations,” the national anti-terrorism prosecutor Olivier Christen assured on Tuesday. He nevertheless highlighted a “resurgence” of the terrorist threat for “the entire territory.”