7 Wounded in Explosion in Lyon, France

israelnationalnews

An explosion on a busy street in the French city of Lyon wounded seven people on Friday evening, local officials said, according to The Associated Press.

The cause of the blast wasn’t immediately known, said Kamel Amerouche, the regional authority’s communications chief. Authorities could not confirm reports that it was a small package that exploded.

Amerouche told AP that the wounded suffered leg injuries and weren’t life-threatening. He said the explosion occurred in or outside a store of the bakery chain Brioche Doree.

The street was blocked off by police in Lyon’s second district.

French President Emmanuel Macron called the explosion it an “attack,” confirmed that there are had been no fatalities and sent “a thought for the injured and their families.”

France has been hit by a wave of terrorist attacks in recent years, beginning with the 2015 attack on the offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine which was followed by the attack on the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket in which four people were murdered.

The Islamic State (ISIS) has claimed some of the attacks on France in recent years. The biggest of these attacks was the November 2015 Paris attack in which 129 people were murdered.

The country has been under a heightened alert in recent years in the wake of the attacks.