Police intervened on Saturday afternoon in the La Défense district of the Paris region after a suicide created a major panic movement in the 4 Temps shopping centre, according to eye witnesses.
Close to 17:00 on Saturday afternoon, a man jumped from several floors from an upper story of the shopping centre. The suicide was established by viewing the surveillance cameras.
The fall reportedly caused a huge noise that was perceived by passers-by as a gunshot, causing panic in the shopping centre – one of the largest in France – which is always very full on Saturday afternoons.
On social networks, several amateur videos showed scenes of panic in the Quatre Temps shopping centre and on the esplanade of the western Parisian business district.
⭕️🇫🇷 #France : Panic in #Paris shopping centre La Defence Mall, after a shot. Reportedly, a person committed suicide pic.twitter.com/jWKulTvnr5
— 🅻-🆃🅴🅰🅼 (@L_Team10) February 18, 2023
“We were in the room when agents came to tell us we had to evacuate,” Jean-Baptiste Zeller, 35, who was in the mall’s UGC cinema at the time, told AFP. “We stayed at the reception desk, near the ticket offices. From what we could see the mall was empty, we could just see police officers in uniform,” said this witness.
“The police are on the scene and securing the area,” the Paris police prefecture had tweeted around 17:30, recommending that people avoid the La Defense area.
