A girl has been killed after a man crashed his car into a pizzeria on the outskirts of Paris. Thirteen other diners were injured according to the deputy public prosecutor, five of them critically – including a three-year-old boy who was in intensive care.
The driver, who French police said appeared to have been acting deliberately, rammed into the terrace of the restaurant in a shopping area at Sept-Sorts, a small suburb 34 miles (55km) to the east of Paris.
Witnesses said the car went through the terrace into the restaurant, where the girl and her family were dining on Monday evening, then tried to reverse out. Her younger brother is one of those in a critical condition.
French media reported that the arrested man told police he wanted to kill himself and claimed to have several weapons in his vehicle.
Officers said his statements were “confused”, but that he was completely unknown to police and security services.
Pierre-Henry Brandet, a spokesperson for the French interior ministry, said the dead girl was 13-years-old.
There was little doubt the attack was deliberate and the driver was “psychologically unstable”, he said.
Brandet said the driver, who was born in 1985, was “not known to the intelligence services and has no criminal record”.
A witness told BFMTV: “A car drove into the terrace and crashed into the bar. The driver tried to reverse but someone stopped them. The gendarmes arrived quickly. There were around 20 people in the restaurant.”The deputy public prosecutor, Eric de Valroger, said the driver, who lived nearby, had deliberately sped into the restaurant at about 8.20pm local time on Monday. He said there were 13 injured, five of them critically, including a three-year-old boy.
De Valroger said: “At this stage this is not a terrorist inquiry. I’m opening an inquiry into homicide with a weapon, attempted homicide with an weapon and driving under the influence of a drug.”
“The individual at the centre of this incident has been arrested and we will know more about his motives in the coming hours.”
He added: “We believe he was under the influence of drugs, not alcohol.”