An armed gunman, suspected to be the same assailant who who killed a policewoman on Thursday, has taken several hostages and is believed to have shot two people in a Jewish grocery shop in the east of Paris.
Five hostages, including children, are being held in Kosher grocery Hyper Cacher off from at Rue Albert Willemetz, a side street off the main Porte de Vincennes boulevard, a police source confirmed to The Independent. At least one shop employee had escaped, he said.
There are also unconfirmed reports that the gunman, thought to be 32-year-old Amedy Coulibaly, is refusing to release any of the hostages until the Kouachi brothers are allowed to flee the police siege further north.
The man, who is reportedly armed with two Kalashnikov rifles, is said to have told police officers: “You know who I am.”
Coulibaly’s girlfriend Hayat Boumedienne, 26, has also be named by police as a person of interest. It is believed that Ms Boumedienne attended a suspected jihadist training camp in Cantal, a mountainous area of central France.