Police have confirmed that two people are dead after gunmen held up a supermarket in eastern Paris.
It is believed there are six hostages been held in the supermarket.
All shops in the Porte de Vincennes area have been ordered closed by police.
The gunman was suspected of being the same man who killed a police woman in southern Paris on Thursday. It is reported that he is accompanied by a woman.
They are thought to have links to the assailants who stormed satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo a day earlier, killing 12 people.
The man and woman are suspected members of the same jihadist group as brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi, who are holed up in a factory near Charles de Gaulle airport.
In Thursday's attack, the gunman was wearing a bullet-proof vest and was carrying a pistol and an automatic rifle.
He opened fire and killed the trainee policewoman, named as Clarissa Jean-Philippe, 25. A street sweeper was seriously injured in the incident.
The shooting is being treated as a "terrorist act" by the French authorities.
Peter Allen is a journalist in Paris - and told Newstalk Lunchtime it is likely all these events are linked.
