Bank hostage standoff ends peacefully

PARIS – A bank robbery in Paris turned into a hostage crisis in mid-June. The crisis was ended by French police, who entered the Credit Lyonnais bank branch in Rungis, south of Paris and arrested two men.

Originally, the bank raiders took six hostages at about 10am. As the crisis unfolded, three of the hostages were released while police ringed the building and hostage negotiators arrived, some two hours later.

The other three – two bank employees and a customer – were freed by police when they stormed the building at about 1.30pm.

The bank is one of about 20 grouped together in an area known as "the money wall" by people in Rungis, which is France's biggest wholesale food market, and claims to be the largest in the world.