PARIS
A gunman who held at least two people hostage in a post office in a northwest suburb of Paris has surrendered to police.
Police said no one was hurt after the man, who was known to police and said to be "disturbed" and believed to have been armed with a Kalashnikov rifle, a pistol and several grenades, seized several people hostage after storming into the office in Colombes just after midday on Friday, according French media reports.
Police said the man was known to them and the incident was not "terror-related".
Local Socialist MP Alexis Bachelay said the man had staged an "armed robbery" while France Info reported him as being "mentally unstable" and acting in the aftermath of a "failed relationship".
A police security cordon had been set up around the scene in the Hauts-de-Seine department northwest of Paris, while a helicopter flew overhead, as police sought to defues the situation.
The incident came as France remains shaken and on alert following last week's attacks on the Paris headquarters of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and shootings at a kosher supermarket in which 17 people were killed.
