The twin standoffsone outside the French capital involving the suspects who shot and killed 12 people Wednesday at the offices of the satirical magazine, the other at a kosher grocery storeended simultaneously with staccato bursts of gunfire and blasts of what appeared to be stun grenades by small armies of law enforcement officers.
“France is living through a trial, when we see the worst massacre of this kind in the last 50 years,” President Francois Hollande said in and address to the nation Friday.
One of the most terrifying weeks in modern French history culminated with the shooting deaths of the suspects in the Charlie Hebdo slaughter — brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi — and scenes of still-stunned hostages being led to freedom by heavily-armed security forces from the kosher supermarket, after the man who police say took hostages there was killed.
“It’s like a war,” a man who identified himself only as Teddy said as the episodes unfolded. “I don’t know how I will explain this to my 5-year-old son.”
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A new manhunt was launched, meanwhile, for the only surviving suspect from the two hostage situations, police union spokesman Pascal Disant said.
That suspect, Hayat Boumeddiene, 26, was allegedly an accomplice of Coulibaly in the standoff at the kosher market.
In a televised address to the nation later, Hollande warned: “France is not done with threats that are targeting (the country).”
