Girl killed as car ‘deliberately’ driven into pizzeria near Paris

A 13-year-old girl has been killed after a man crashed his car into a pizzeria on the outskirts of Paris. Thirteen other diners were injured according to the deputy public prosecutor, five of them critically – including a three-year-old boy who was in intensive care.

The driver of the BMW, a 32-year-old French national, was arrested after the vehicle hit the terrace of the cafe in Sept-Sorts, near La Ferté-sous-Jouarre, French media say. French police said he appeared to have been acting deliberately.

French media reported that the arrested man told police he wanted to kill himself and claimed to have several weapons in his vehicle.

While his actions are said to have been deliberate, the incident is not being treated as a terror attack.

There was little doubt the attack was deliberate and the driver was “psychologically unstable”, Pierre-Henry Brandet, a spokesperson for the French interior ministry, said.

He had, the spokesperson said, tried to kill himself a few days ago. It appears he had no previous criminal record.

The incident in Sept-Sorts, a small village 55km east of Paris, happened around 8:30pm.

"Half of the car entered the restaurant and knocked down all the customers and staff in its way," a soldier was quoted as saying by Le Parisien newspaper.

France and a number of other countries have seen deadly vehicle attacks on civilians, notably in the French city of Nice on Bastille Day 2016 when 84 people were killed.

Last week, a man rammed a group of soldiers in Paris, injuring six of them, before being shot and injured by police as he tried to escape.