Paris fraud squad offices evacuated over bomb scare

PARIS, France – Around 100 people were evacuated on Monday, March 20, from the offices of France’s financial fraud prosecutors over a bomb alert, two days after an attack led to the evacuation of the city’s second busiest airport.

An anonymous caller had told police that there was a bomb in the building that houses prosecutors investigating high-level financial crimes, a police source said.

Bomb disposal experts were sent to the site in central Paris, which was cordoned off.

The all-clear was given after “the usual checks” were carried out, the source said.

The financial fraud wing of the Paris criminal court is currently investigating Francois Fillon, the conservative candidate in France’s April-May presidential election, on charges of misusing public funds.

It is also investigating the far-right National Front party of Marine Le Pen over alleged fake jobs.

The bomb scare comes after Saturday’s attack at Orly airport where a man who had been investigated for links to radical Islam was shot dead after assaulting a soldier on patrol and grabbing her rifle.

It was the third in a string of incidents to hit France in recent days.

Last Thursday, a letter bomb sent by a Greek far-left group to the Paris offices of the International Monetary Fund injured a secretary.

That incident came the same day that a 16-year-old pupil opened fire at his school in southern France, wounding four fellow students and a teacher. – Rappler.com