France President Emmanuel Macron called a package blast on a pedestrian street in the heart of France's city of Lyon on Friday an "attack" after the device wounded more than a dozen people. None of the injuries was life-threatening. The incident comes just two days ahead of the country's hotly contested European Parliament elections.
Police were hunting a man believed to be in his early 30s on a mountain bicycle who witnesses and security cameras saw in the area immediately before the explosion.
The blast occurred on a narrow strip of land between the Saone and Rhone rivers. A police source said the package contained "screws or bolts". It had been placed in front of a bakery near a busy corner of two popular streets at around 17:30 pm (1530 GMT) on a balmy spring evening.
Macron, speaking in a live Facebook interview, said: "It's not for me to give a toll but it appears there are no fatalities. There have been injuries, so obviously I'm thinking of these injured and their families."
The attack upended last-minute campaigning ahead of the European Parliament vote on Sunday with Prime Minister Edouard Philippe cancelling his appearance at his centrist party's final rally Friday night.
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Shortly after evacuating the area, police expanded the security perimeter after two abandoned bags were found in a children's park at the nearby Bellcour square, though bomb disposal teams later determined they were harmless.
Lyon is the third-biggest city in France. The population of the city plus its extensive suburbs is 2.3 million.
The most recent package bomb in France dates back to December 2007, when an explosion in front of a law office in Paris killed one person and injured another. Police never found who carried out that attack.
