Priest shot in southeastern France, attacker on the run

An armed man on Saturday afternoon opened fire at a Greek Orthodox priest and wounded him seriously in the center of Lyon, France’s third largest city, before running away, state-run France info reported.

At around 4 p.m. local time (1500 GMT), the 52-year-old priest was shot twice when he was closing the church. He was in critical condition, according to the report.

“An individual of Mediterranean type who is about 1.90m (…) seemed to hide a sawn-off pump-action shotgun under his gabardine. He used his arm against the Orthodox priest and he fled,” Ludovic Cassier, departmental representative of the SGP Police Unit was quoted as saying.

Police immediately cordoned off the area and asked people to stay away. Lyon prosecutor office had taken on the shooting probe, which showed that no apparent link to terrorism had yet been established.

Visiting the incident’s site, Mayor of Lyon Gregory Doucet said “no hypothesis is ruled out, no hypothesis is privileged.”

Prime Minister Jean Castex, who was on a visit to Seine-Maritime region in north France “to ensure the deployment of additional security forces” to protect places of worship and schools after Thursday’s knife attack at a church in Nice, said he was returning to Paris to assess the situation.