Shootout Linked To Drug Trafficking Injures Five In France

A massive shootout linked to drug trafficking has left a teenager and four others seriously wounded in western France, Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said Friday, in the latest such gunfight to injure children.

The shootout erupted in front of a restaurant overnight in the western city of Poitiers, Retailleau told BFMTV/RMC radio. 

"What started as a shooting at a restaurant ended up in a fight between rival gangs that involved several hundred people", Retailleau said.

The 15-year-old boy wounded was between life and death, he said.

The minister warned that the country was at a "tipping point" when it came to drug trafficking violence, saying that he was planning to travel later in the day to the northwestern city of Rennes, where a five-year-old child was also between life and death after being shot on Saturday in another fire exchange related to drug trafficking.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)