Girl Dead, Four Hurt After Car 'Deliberately' Smashes Into Restaurant East Of Paris

A car smashed into a pizza restaurant east of Paris late on Monday, killing a young girl and badly injuring four other people, but investigators said the young driver had tried to commit suicide and the incident was not terror-related.

French officials have said the driver 'clearly acted with intention but we have no reasons so far to suspect a terrorist motive'.

The younger brother of the girl who died is among four people who received serious injuries — a further eight sustained minor injuries.

The male driver is thought to have 'pulled up close to the restaurant' in a dark-coloured BMW car, and then 'deliberately targeted it'.

Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said on BFM television that the man was born in 1985 and is believed to have tried to kill himself last week.

Mr Brandet said a young girl was killed and four people were injured in a condition of 'absolute emergency'.  

A police official said the man is in custody and was psychologically unstable but had no police record.

A source close to the case said 'there were quite a lot of people on the terrace' and that 'the man was arrested and is now with the police'

The pizzeria is in an industrial zone, surrounded by other restaurants. It is particularly popular with young families on warm summer evenings like tonight.

Last week an illegal immigrant to France was shot by police five times after running down six soldiers with a hired BMW in a Paris suburb.

The terrorist suspect, identified as Hamou Bachir, a 36-year-old Algerian, was caught after initially escaping the scene of the crime at Levallois-Perret.

Bachir - who also uses the name Benlatreche – ploughed into a uniformed and heavily armed unit of the 35th Infantry Regiment as they took part in Operation Sentinel.

The security initiative was set up in 2015 following a series of atrocities in Paris carried out by Islamic State and Al-Qaeda operatives.

Bachir was lurking as two three-man patrols swapped shifts, and then he approached them slowly 'before speeding up,' said local mayor Patrick Balkany.

France remains under a State of Emergency following a long string of attacks, including an attempt to kill a soldier at the Eiffel Tower earlier this month.

The 19-year-old psychiatric patient is in custody after he brandished a knife and pledged allegiance to Isis.

In April, 39-year-old police officers Xavier Jugele was shot dead while on duty on the Champs Elysee just days before the French presidential election.

Isis claimed the killing by Karim Cheurfi, also 39, who was shot dead by police in a gun battle. Two other officers were injured in the attack.

In June an Algerian student shouted 'This is for Syria' as he tried to attack a policeman with a hammer outside Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. He was shot and ended up in custody in hospital.

And in March a convicted criminal with links to radical Islam shouted 'I am here to die for Allah, there will be deaths' seconds before he was shot dead during an attack at Paris Orly airport.

Ziyed Ben Belgacem, a 39-year-old career criminal, was killed after wrestling a soldier's gun from her and fleeing into a McDonald's restaurant.

It followed the shooting in February of a man outside the Louvre museum in the heart of Paris after he attempted to storm the historic art gallery.

Anti-terrorism prosecutors have opened an enquiry into today's attack. The assailant will be questioned at length 'when his condition allows', said an Interior Ministry spokesman.