A tragic incident occurred in Thionville, northeastern France, when masked gunmen opened fire at a wedding reception, leaving one person dead and five others injured.
According to police sources, the shooting is believed to be linked to a drug trafficking dispute.
The shooting, according to an AFP report occurred at a reception hall overnight Saturday to Sunday, with around a hundred people in attendance.
Two people were seriously injured and one of them was in a critical condition.
“It was during a wedding,” a police source said.
“At a quarter past one in the morning, a group of people went outside to smoke in front of the hall, and then three heavily armed men arrived and opened fire in their direction.”
The assailants arrived in a 4X4 vehicle, “probably a BMW”, the source said.
It was not immediately clear where the vehicle had come from. Thionville is located close to the borders of Luxembourg and Germany.
Members of law enforcement believe that a settling of scores linked to drug trafficking was behind the violence.
“The wedding was not targeted as such, it was people who were at the wedding,” the source said.
A glass door pierced with bullet holes could be seen at the scene on Sunday morning.
In the neighbouring town of Villerupt shootings between rival gangs at a drug dealing point left five people injured in May 2023.
