French bandits' Wild West-style attack on train near Marseille
A group of masked robbers blocked railway tracks with shopping trolleys and metal beams and robbed a freight train near Marseille in southern France on Thursday night in a scene similar to an American Wild West film.
The dramatic attack on the norther outskirts of the city saw a passenger train being held up as it was hurtled into the blockade and the cargo train behind it stopping.
Around 20 robbers looted several carriages and then vanished into the night. It was unclear what was taken from the train.
'Attacks on trains aren't new, but it is a pretty rare phenomenon,' police union official David-Olivier Reverdy from the area told Reuters.
'It's worthy of stagecoach attacks in the Wild West,' he said.
Nobody was injured in the attack but the railway union said that while the incident was rare, it was a sign that there wasn't enough invested in the security of the railway authority's sites.
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