He refused to pay the bill, then barricaded himself in his room in the Formule 1 Hotel in Bollène, in the department of Vaucluse, in southern France, near Avignon. In an alert France, the alarm immediately went off. According to witnesses, the man had a knife and a suspect package, with exposed wires, which had suggested a possible bomb. After a day of high tension, the man was arrested by the police.

The hotel had been evacuated immediately after the alarm, which started at about 1.45 pm. The Gendarmerie Nationale bomb squad and emergency services arrived from Orange. Nearby are also some fire-fighting units, including those for technological risks.

A security perimeter of 250 meters had been erected around the hotel on avenue Albert Peyron. In addition, the 47 Marseille-Lyon motorway was closed at Piolenc for safety reasons. The police had immediately started a negotiation also to ascertain that it did not hold hostages. Agents reported that the man had barricaded himself around after a heated discussion of the counter to pay with the hotel manager. “All available means are in place, and several units are ready to intervene,” said Bernard Gonzalez, prefect of Vaucluse. In the evening, shortly after 9pm, the affair ended with surrender and arrest.

France is still shaken after the massacre last Friday in Nice, Francois Hollande does not exclude to further extend, and up to six months, the state of emergency already in force in France from the days immediately following the terrorist attacks of November 13 in Paris: the French president himself said, on the sidelines of the official visit undertaken today in Portugal as part of the summit meeting set up by the Elysium in various European countries to assess the consequences of the recent Brexit, the exit of Great Britain from the EU. “There has just been an attack and, at this point, we do not know if there will be others,” said Hollande. “It is my duty, and the duty of Parliament, to extend the state of emergency for three months, although I am available to a further quarterly extension “, precisely for a total duration of one semester.