Normandy: A priest has been killed and two attackers shot dead as armed men took hostages in a church in France's northern Normandy region. Five people, including two nuns, were inside the church when the knife-wielding attackers took them hostage in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, near Rouen.
Interior ministry spokesman Pierre Henry Brandet said "the two assailants came out and were killed by police".
Newspaper Le Figaro reports the priest had his throat cut by the armed men.
Three of the hostages were freed unharmed, and another is fighting for their life.
Sister Danielle, a nun who was in the church at the time, said elderly priest Father Jaques Hamel was wearing his white cloaks and was at the foot of the altar when "they forced him to get on his knees and not move".
"He tried to struggle, he tried," she told local radio RMC. "He knew what was happening."
She said the men were speaking Arabic and shouting and had "recorded" the attack. She managed to run away and alert the police.
One of the two attackers had been charged with terror links and held before being freed on bail, a source close to the investigation said.
The assailant, who was known to France's anti-terrorism police, tried twice to go to Syria in 2015, the source told AFP. After his release, he had to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet that allows police to locate him at all times.
A source close to the investigation said the attackers were armed with knives, an old pistol which did not work, and a "fake package" that appeared as if it contained explosives.
The town's mosque was inaugurated in 2000 on a piece of land gifted by the Catholic parish.
Read more at http://www.9news.com.au/world/2016/07/26/18/59/reports-of-hostages-taken-at-church-in-rouen-in-northern-france#p3lV840zyIX5r5fd.99
One of my favourite French terms is "Deja vu".
:-\