By Ladka Bauerova and Helene Fouquet
Dec. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Paris luxury department store Printemps reopened for public after police found and removed explosives this morning.
The store, full of Christmas shoppers, was evacuated and closed shortly after 11 a.m. today after police alerted the management to the possibility of a bomb, Printemps said today in an e-mailed statement. The store partially reopened at 2 p.m. and was working normally by 4 p.m.
Detectives were alerted to the package by a note sent to Agence France-Presse, police spokeswoman Celine Diguignard said by telephone. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said the explosives couldn’t be set off as they didn’t have detonators. Sarkozy, speaking at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, told reporters he was “vigilant” and wouldn’t compromise with terrorists.
Responsibility was claimed by a previously unknown group calling itself the Afghan Revolutionary Front which sent the note to AFP. The group is demanding the withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan before the end of February, according to a copy of the note obtained by Bloomberg.
“Pass this message to your president and tell him to withdraw his troops from our country, otherwise we will take direct action in your capitalist department stores, and this time without warning you first,” the group said in the note.
Five sticks of dynamite were placed between the first and the second floor of the men’s section of the department store, AFP said, citing Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie.
“The police are right now analyzing the substances that have been used,” Sarkozy said. “The one thing we know is that there were no detonators.”
France has “not stopped being vigilant since 2002 when I was first interior minister,” he said. “Vigilance toward terrorism is the only line we can follow.”
France is going to step up security by adding more police officers, Alliot-Marie said today. The national security alert system, known as Vigipirate, remains at “red,” the second highest alert level.
“This Revolutionary Afghan Front is unknown, I have never heard of them,” said Dominique Thomas, a researcher at EHESS, a Paris-based social sciences university, who specializes in international terrorism. “The French authorities are going to step up strongly their security procedures, which are already very high during the Christmas season.”
Further reading at:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601100&sid=aB8Ct9mWIdhw&refer=germany
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