PARIS — One person was killed in a suspected terror attack at a factory near Lyon in southeastern France, a local government official said Friday.
Police told French news agency AFP that a suspected Islamist attacker pinned a decapitated head covered with Arabic writing to the gates of a gas factory in eastern France on Friday, before being arrested. The man arrested at the scene is refusing to talk, CNN’s French affiliate BFMTV reported. He has no identification papers on him.
A man described as a witness, whose name was given as Patrice, also told BFMTV that a group of men carrying Islamic flags forced their way into the factory, beheaded a person and targeted gas tanks.
Le Monde newspaper cited unidentified sources as saying that two individuals rammed a vehicle into the building, causing the explosion. Banners in Arabic that haven’t yet been examined were found at the scene, the paper added.
The Paris prosecutor’s office said its anti-terrorist section was opening an investigation into crimes related to a terrorist enterprise.
A spokeswoman for the company concerned, Air Products, confirmed there had been “an incident” on site at its Grenoble location.
Spokeswoman Nicola Long said the emergency services were at the scene. There was an explosion, she said, a a fire that has been put out.
She was not able to give any information on any deaths or injuries. The company supplies gases for industrial use.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve is making his way to the scene in the village of Saint-Quentin-Fallavier, between Lyon and Grenoble, immediately.
Security has been heightened in France since an Islamist terror attack in January, when attackers targeted the satirical Charlie Hebdo magazine and a kosher supermarket in Paris.
