Armed security forces stand guard near the Castellane neighbourhood in Marseille, where hooded gunmen armed with Kalashnikovs have fired on police
The director for public safety, Pierre-Marie Bourniquel, told local media that shots were fired at a police vehicle, narrowly missing it
Hooded
gunmen armed with Kalashnikovs have fired at police in the French city
of Marseille, where the country's Prime Minister was due to visit later
today.
The
Castellane neighbourhood of the southern port city is now under lock
down, including
schools and colleges and a kindergarten after witnesses
say they saw men in balaclavas firing weapons towards officers.
The
director for public safety, Pierre-Marie Bourniquel, told local media
that shots were fired at a police vehicle, narrowly missing it.
It comes as the French Prime Minister Manuel Valls was due in Marseille later today to talk about security as crime levels in the city have dropped.
He had not yet arrived in the city before the shooting, and it is thought he will still go ahead with his visit.
Referring to today's attack, a police source said: 'Shots were fired at police vehicles.
'Roads in and out of the estate have now been blocked, and officers are dealing with the situation. There are no reports of casualties so far. '
La Figaro also reported Mr Bourniquel, went to the area but his car was shot at by fighting gang members as it approached.
'The police commander who was with him had to lie on the floor,' said the newspaper.
'The car was not hit but bullet holes were found two or three meters away from the vehicle in an embankment.'
Early indications say the shooting appears to be gang-related rather than a terror attack.
Armed elite troops have been sent to the scene with the area evacuated as a precaution.
A police officer directs a young boy outside a school as officers secure an area next to the Castellane neighbourhood where shots were heard
A helicopter hovers over the scene in the southern port city of Marseille. French Prime Minister Manuel Valls was due in Marseille later today to talk about security as crime levels in the city have dropped
Caroline Pozmentier, deputy mayor of Marseille, suggested the incdient was part of a problem of drug trafficking in the area.
She said: 'This battle against drug trafficking is a long-term battle.'
By late morning heavily armed police could be seen surrounding the estate, which has a large Muslim community, many from North African backgrounds.
Security across France is still high in the wake of the Paris terror attacks where Islamic extremists attacked the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket the capital.
Twelve people died when gunmen Said and Cherif Kouachi attacked the offices of Charlie Hebdo.
A policewoman was shot dead the next morning, and then there were four more fatalities in a Kosher store before three Al Qaeda and Islamic State-linked terrorists were themselves gunned down.
Security across France is still high in the wake of the Paris terror attacks where Islamic extremists attacked the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket in Paris
Mr Valls has been at the forefront of a vast clampdown on suspected Islamic terrorists following the Charlie Hebdo terrorist shootings.
He said last month that terrorist attacks have exposed a 'geographic, social, ethnic apartheid' present in French society.
The Prime Minister also explained that there was an urgent need to fight hatred and discrimination, especially in deprived estates which are home to many communities of immigrant origin, especially Muslim.
All three Paris terrorists were born and brought up on Paris sink estates, and had started out as street criminals.
La Castellane is best known in France as the birthplace of Zinedine Zidane, the French-Algerian footballer whose goals won the World Cup for the country in 1998.