Man holds staff hostage in restaurant outside Paris

A knife-wielding man on Saturday took several employees hostage in his father's restaurant on the outskirts of Paris as a large police force surrounded the establishment.

The pizzeria is located in the town of Issy-les-Moulineaux in the southwestern suburbs of the French capital, not far beyond the Paris ring road.

The man was holding "three or four employees" but there were no customers or members of the public among the hostages, a police source told AFP.

Police set up a security perimeter around the venue.

The man locked himself in the restaurant just before 1 pm local time (noon GMT), the source said. A mediator was dispatched to the scene.

"Intervention is in progress," the police prefecture wrote on X. "Let security and emergency services do their job."