French police overpower school hostage-taker
French police have overpowered a man who was holding a parent hostage in a Paris school. They say that he was agitated and expressed the wish to die.
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The hostage drama in the Charles Perrault school in Vitry-sur-Seine, south-east of Paris, ended just before midday.
Police first convinced the armed man to release his one hostage, a father who had been dropping off his son at the school, then convinced him to come out of the building, at which point they overpowered him and took him into custody.
Police denied earlier reports that other children had been taken hostage.
The hostage-taker was speaking incoherently and expressed the wish to die, judicial sources told the AFP news agency, but had never acted in a threatening manner towards his hostage.
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