Four people have been taken hostage in a bank in
the southern French city of Toulouse by a man claiming to be linked to
al-Qaeda, police say.
The man fired a shot and demanded to speak to the elite police unit that shot Islamist gunman Mohamed Merah.


Merah, who claimed al-Qaeda training, killed seven people in Toulouse before he was shot dead by police in March.


However, police official Cedric Delage said the man took hostages after an attempted armed robbery went wrong.


The area around the bank has been cordoned off.


"We do not know if his claim about al-Qaeda is serious or a
fantasy," a police union source told the regional newspaper
Ouest-France.













http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18516934