July 01, 2008	Tuesday	Jamadi-us-Sani 26, 1429

CARCASSONNE (France): French officials were probing on Monday an incident that left 17 people injured, including a child, when soldiers used live rounds in a weekend visitors day display.

Fifteen civilians, including five children, and two soldiers were injured on Sunday when members of a marines parachute regiment demonstrated a hostage liberation exercise to visitors at their barracks outside the southwestern city of Carcassonne, regional officials said. Four of the 17 were seriously injured, two critically, but doctors said early on Monday that the condition of the worst injured had stabilised. Hospitals in the southern cities and towns of Toulouse, Narbonne, Montpellier and Perpignan, as well as Carcassonne, were treating the injured.

One soldier, described as experienced with no history of behavioural or psychological problems, was detained following the incident.

Military and civilian investigators immediately opened probes into the events at the Third Marine Parachute Regiment barracks.

France’s Defence Minister Herve Morin travelled to Carcassonne on Sunday evening to visit the injured.—AFP