Francois Mori/Associated Press
French police outside the Printemps department store complex in central Paris on Tuesday.
Published: December 16, 2008
PARIS -- French police found a package of explosives at the Printemps department store complex in central Paris on Tuesday, a spokeswoman at Paris police headquarters said.
The spokeswoman, Mélanie Leprettre, said a warning about the explosives had been sent Tuesday morning to the French news agency Agence France-Presse, which alerted the police.
A previously unknown group demanding the withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan claimed to have planted the explosive devices. Officials said that five sticks of dynamite had been found.
An editor at AFP, André Birukoff, said the news agency had received an earlier warning that an attack on Printemps was imminent. He said that one of AFP’s journalists had received an anonymous telephone call on the morning of Dec. 10 warning that there would soon be an explosion at the department store. The caller broke off before identifying himself or giving any other information.
Employees said that the store had been on high alert for several days.
The discovery of the explosives at the height of the Christmas shopping season threw the area into confusion, with traffic backed up as the police cordoned off streets around Printemps. The store, on the elegant Boulevard Haussmann in the heart of one of the French capital’s main shopping districts, is packed with shoppers and tourists at this time of year.
President Nicolas Sarkozy, speaking from the eastern French city of Strasbourg, said in a live television statement that the devices had no detonators attached. He said that the French police were analyzing the devices, and he called for calm and vigilance.
Security agents at the scene said the explosives had been discovered in a rest room on the third floor of the Printemps men’s store, one of three Printemps buildings in the complex. All three stores were evacuated.
In its statement to AFP, a group calling itself the Afghan Revolutionary Front said that it had planted several bombs in the Printemps men’s store that would go off if not removed by Wednesday. The statement called for the withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan. It added: “Send the message to your president that he needs to withdraw his troops from our country (Afghanistan) before the end of February 2009, or else we will act again in your capitalist department stores, and this time with no warning.”
France has about 3,000 troops deployed with the NATO-led force in Afghanistan.
French news reports said that the French intelligence services had no previous knowledge of the group.
Guards at the entrance to Printemps said they had received the order to evacuate the store at 11:20 a.m. and that the evacuation had taken about 15 minutes. They declined to say how many people had been evacuated.
A spokeswoman at Galeries Lafayette, the other large department store complex on Boulevard Haussmann, said that the Paris flagship store was visited by about 200,000 shoppers a day during the Christmas season.
Within about an hour of the evacuation, Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie and Mayor Bertrand Delanoë were both at the scene, where the normally packed boulevard was empty of vehicles other than bomb squad vans that had been sent in, looking eerily out of place against the backdrop of colorful Christmas lights.
“For the moment, we have found sticks of dynamite in just one location,” Ms. Alliot-Marie told reporters. She said that the kind of dynamite found was “relatively old.”
Outside Printemps, there was not panic but frustration among shoppers and tourists huddled outside and impatient to resume their shopping.
“Well, I’ll just have to come back later, then,” said Eleanor Deshayes, 29, when informed that the department store had been evacuated due to a bomb alert.
By 1 p.m. the police were removing barriers and traffic began flowing again. Printemps saleswomen, who had been shivering in near-freezing temperatures after evacuating the store in their shirtsleeves, prepared to return to their sales counters. Shortly after 2 p.m., two of the Printemps stores reopened but the men’s unit remained closed.
Public concern about the French military presence in Afghanistan has been growing since the deaths of 10 soldiers there in a Taliban ambush in August.
The ambush, in which 21 others were wounded, was the bloodiest against French forces since a 1983 attack in Beirut killed 58 soldiers.
Mr. Sarkozy has strongly defended France’s role in Afghanistan alongside its Western allies as part of the fight against terrorism and for the rights of Afghan women.
But his promise in April to commit additional French troops, which brought the commitment to nearly 3,000, was not popular.
Meg Bortin and Caroline Brothers contributed reporting.
A previously unknown group demanding the withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan claimed to have planted the explosive devices. Officials said that five sticks of dynamite had been found.
An editor at AFP, André Birukoff, said the news agency had received an earlier warning that an attack on Printemps was imminent. He said that one of AFP’s journalists had received an anonymous telephone call on the morning of Dec. 10 warning that there would soon be an explosion at the department store. The caller broke off before identifying himself or giving any other information.
Employees said that the store had been on high alert for several days.
The discovery of the explosives at the height of the Christmas shopping season threw the area into confusion, with traffic backed up as the police cordoned off streets around Printemps. The store, on the elegant Boulevard Haussmann in the heart of one of the French capital’s main shopping districts, is packed with shoppers and tourists at this time of year.
President Nicolas Sarkozy, speaking from the eastern French city of Strasbourg, said in a live television statement that the devices had no detonators attached. He said that the French police were analyzing the devices, and he called for calm and vigilance.
Security agents at the scene said the explosives had been discovered in a rest room on the third floor of the Printemps men’s store, one of three Printemps buildings in the complex. All three stores were evacuated.
In its statement to AFP, a group calling itself the Afghan Revolutionary Front said that it had planted several bombs in the Printemps men’s store that would go off if not removed by Wednesday. The statement called for the withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan. It added: “Send the message to your president that he needs to withdraw his troops from our country (Afghanistan) before the end of February 2009, or else we will act again in your capitalist department stores, and this time with no warning.”
France has about 3,000 troops deployed with the NATO-led force in Afghanistan.
French news reports said that the French intelligence services had no previous knowledge of the group.
Guards at the entrance to Printemps said they had received the order to evacuate the store at 11:20 a.m. and that the evacuation had taken about 15 minutes. They declined to say how many people had been evacuated.
A spokeswoman at Galeries Lafayette, the other large department store complex on Boulevard Haussmann, said that the Paris flagship store was visited by about 200,000 shoppers a day during the Christmas season.
Within about an hour of the evacuation, Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie and Mayor Bertrand Delanoë were both at the scene, where the normally packed boulevard was empty of vehicles other than bomb squad vans that had been sent in, looking eerily out of place against the backdrop of colorful Christmas lights.
“For the moment, we have found sticks of dynamite in just one location,” Ms. Alliot-Marie told reporters. She said that the kind of dynamite found was “relatively old.”
Outside Printemps, there was not panic but frustration among shoppers and tourists huddled outside and impatient to resume their shopping.
“Well, I’ll just have to come back later, then,” said Eleanor Deshayes, 29, when informed that the department store had been evacuated due to a bomb alert.
By 1 p.m. the police were removing barriers and traffic began flowing again. Printemps saleswomen, who had been shivering in near-freezing temperatures after evacuating the store in their shirtsleeves, prepared to return to their sales counters. Shortly after 2 p.m., two of the Printemps stores reopened but the men’s unit remained closed.
Public concern about the French military presence in Afghanistan has been growing since the deaths of 10 soldiers there in a Taliban ambush in August.
The ambush, in which 21 others were wounded, was the bloodiest against French forces since a 1983 attack in Beirut killed 58 soldiers.
Mr. Sarkozy has strongly defended France’s role in Afghanistan alongside its Western allies as part of the fight against terrorism and for the rights of Afghan women.
But his promise in April to commit additional French troops, which brought the commitment to nearly 3,000, was not popular.
Meg Bortin and Caroline Brothers contributed reporting.
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