A soldier fired live rounds instead of blanks at visitors attending a military demonstration at a French army base, leaving 17 people injured, including five children.
A senior army officer insisted that Sunday’s shooting incident during a hostage liberation exercise at a barracks outside the south-western city of Carcassonne was almost certainly the result of an “unintentional” error.
Fifteen civilians were among those injured. Two of them, including a three-year-old child, were listed as critical, doctors said. Two soldiers were also hurt.
One soldier, described as experienced with no history of behavioral or psychological problems, was detained following the incident.
The use of the live rounds was “99,9%” likely to be “an unintentional fault,” said Colonel Benoit Royal, head of the French army’s information service, on Monday.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy was due to visit the injured in the hospitals in Carcassonne and Toulouse, his office said.
Military and civilian investigators immediately opened probes into the events at the Third Marine Parachute Regiment barracks.
“I cannot rule out anything because we don’t know what might be going on in a man’s head,” Defence Minister Herve Morin said on France Info radio.
Morin argued that “an experienced soldier” would not confuse blanks and real bullets, and added that the two munitions are packed into different-coloured magazines.
Earlier, Morin told journalists that safety measures had been respected and that the soldier who fired the live rounds had an exemplary record.
“Security regulations were respected … use of blanks requires a distance of at least 10m from the public and the public was more than 10m away,” he said.
“According to initial findings of the inquiry, the incident involved a soldier with a perfect record, who had participated in operations and had seven to eight years of experience. There is nothing that would make one think he had behavioral or psychological problems,” he added.
The senior official for the Aude region where Carcassonne is located, Bernard Lemaire, said that investigators believed the deadly ammunition was loaded by mistake.
“The question being asked is ‘Did the soldier engage in a criminal act or not?’,” Lemaire said. “For now, no one can answer that, but the theory being worked on is one of error.”
Sarkozy said he “shares with the families the pain caused by this tragedy. My first thoughts are with the victims. Everything will be put in place to care for them.”
Gilles Hulard, a doctor from Carcassonne’s rescue service said that condition of the injured appeared to be improving.
“The condition of patients injured the most seriously have stabilised, including that of a three-year-old child very seriously injured, who seems to be improving,” said Hulard.
Most critically injured was a man with wounds to his chest, he said.
Hulard said the injured received first aid within three to four minutes of the shooting.
The Third Marine Parachute Regiment based outside of Carcassonne numbers 1 200 troops. – AFP