Twelve people injured after grenade thrown into packed French bar

Twelve people were injured, at least two critically, when a grenade was thrown into a packed bar in the city of Grenoble in south-eastern France.

An attacker carrying an automatic rifle reportedly entered the bar on Wednesday evening and threw the grenade before fleeing without saying a word.

The local public prosecutor François Touret de Courcy described the attack as “an act of extreme violence”. He said investigators had not yet identified a motive, but did not believe it was a terrorist attack.

He said police were looking at whether it was a settling of scores between local gangs. Grenoble and its suburbs have been the scene of a number of incidents linked to drug and cigarette trafficking.

The magistrate Christophe Barret said the attacker appeared to have been carrying a Kalashnikov-type assault rifle but did not use it.

The incident occurred at 8.15pm local time on Wednesday in the Olympic Village neighbourhood, built when the city hosted the 1968 Winter Olympics, Touret de Courcy said.

The blast blew out all the windows of the bar, which is run by a local association. Six people were reported to have been seriously wounded including two critically. Three of the victims were reported to have needed emergency surgery.

The prefect of Isère department, Catherine Séguin, described it as a “cowardly criminal act”.

The mayor of Grenoble, Éric Piolle, wrote on X: “I condemn in the strongest possible terms this criminal act of extraordinary violence.” He also thanked the emergency services for their work.

France’s health minister, Yannick Neuder, visited the victims in hospital on Thursday and “strongly” condemned the attack. “This attack was one of extraordinary, quite unusual violence. When we consider a hand grenade … these are almost the techniques of war,” he said.

Echoing his comments, the coordinator of Grenoble hospital’s emergency plan, Pierre Bouzat, told Le Dauphiné Libéré newspaper: “The injuries are those normally seen in a war zone.”

The bar was reported to have been full of men at the time of the attack.

Cecilio Sanchez, the president of the residents’ union in the Village-Olympique district, told the local newspaper: “We have an Olympic village by day with local police who do a super job along with local residents. And we have an Olympic village by night where there’s nobody to ensure the safety of residents. After a certain hour, the district is deserted. There are no longer any rules. Violence is everywhere. This is our daily life.”

With Agence France-Presse