A heavily armed man, who had taken refuge at his home in a village in the Landes since Tuesday evening, was arrested without incident Thursday, June 30 afternoon, noted an AFP correspondent.
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According to the prefecture, this man who practices hunting is followed for psychiatric problems and has 21 declared firearms at his home.
A neighbor, worried about the aggressive behavior of this 61-year-old man, had called the gendarmes on Tuesday evening.
Upon their arrival, the madman barricaded himself in his pavilion in Campet-et-Lamolère, a village of 510 inhabitants 10 km west of Mont-de-Marsan.
In total, around fifty soldiers, including members of the Gendarmerie Intervention Group (GIGN) called in as reinforcements, surrounded his home since Wednesday, according to the gendarmerie.
Feeling threatened, the man called the gendarmerie for help on Thursday before being arrested by men from the GIGN disguised as gendarmes, detailed a source close to the investigation.
During the 44 hours that the operations lasted, he fired several times at the soldiers, without causing any injuries and was arrested without incident and then placed in police custody, said the gendarmerie.
Twenty residents of the subdivision where the arrested man resides had been evacuated on Wednesday and temporarily relocated.
