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Avignon shooting: Eight people injured after gunmen open fire near mosque

Eight people have been injured in a shooting outside a mosque in southern France.

Two suspects with their faces covered opened fire outside the mosque in the city of Avignon on Sunday night.

Police said they were not treating it as a terrorist incident.

Four people were wounded outside the mosque at about 10.30pm, and a family of four – including a seven-year-old girl – suffered injuries from shrapnel while in their apartment about 50 metres away, according to La Provence newspaper.

The suspects were carrying a handgun and shotgun and pulled up outside the mosque in a Renault Clio before shots were fired, the newspaper reported.

Crime scene: Police officers outside the mosque in Avignon (REUTERS)
Crime scene: Police officers outside the mosque in Avignon (REUTERS)

La Provence, citing a source, said two of the injured were taken to hospital and that worshippers leaving the mosque had not been the intended target.

A witness at the scene said that dozens of people started to flee when they saw two suspects jump out of the vehicle with guns.

"It was a black Renault car. There were four individuals, only two of them, who were seated in the back, stepped out and started shooting at everyone,” the witness said.

After the shooting, the perpetrators fled.

The incident comes after a man was arrested on Thursday after trying to drive a car into a crowd in front of a mosque in the Paris suburb of Creteil. No one was injured.

France remains under a state of emergency, in place since a terror attack on the capital in November 2015, including at the Bataclan theatre, claimed 130 lives.