French prisons hit by wave of overnight attacks

Vehicles were set alight outside several French prisons, and one jail was hit by gunfire from an automatic weapon, in a wave of overnight attacks.

Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin said the jails had faced "intimidation attempts" and linked the attacks to the government's crackdown on drug trafficking.

Seven prisons were targeted in Toulon, Aix-En-Provence, Marseille, Valence and Nîmes in southern France, and in Villepinte and Nanterre, near Paris, according to the Parisien newspaper.