Two holidaymakers were among those shot in southern France on Sunday evening, one of them fatally, as local criminals exchanged fire at a popular coastal town.
The shooting took place in the town of Ollioules, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur late Sunday near a petrol station, reports local newspaper Var-Matin. Several people were shot as local criminals opened fire on one another, and three were killed.
One of the dead was a female French tourist on a holiday to the sunny south of the country, and one of the wounded was the woman’s husband. The others injured and killed are reported to have been local individuals known to police for criminal activity.
Police are still hunting the perpetrators of the shooting. Paris newspaper Le Figaro reports neither the number of shooters active nor the type of weapons used are presently known. The newspaper also points to two other fatal shootings in the area earlier in 2019, including one of a notorious criminal.
Ollioules’s entry on tourism website ProvenceWeb boasts the medieval town’s proximity to “lovely beaches”, and which benefits from beautiful ruins, ancient buildings, and historic charm.
Tourism to France has suffered amid a rise of violence in the country, visited upon holidaymakers by both terrorist acts and criminals. Breitbart London reported in 2017 how tourism figures to capital Paris fell 1.5 million on terror fears, although numbers have since rebounded.