Some 30 people have been injured, four of them very seriously, after an explosion at a French carnival in the Paris suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis.
French authorities said Saturday that the explosion took place at around 5 p.m. local time in the commune of Villepinte, about 18 kilometers from the center of Paris.
French daily Le Parisien said most of those affected by the explosion had suffered shocks or minor injuries but four were hospitalized and in a critical condition.
The cause of the explosion is not yet known but firefighters denied any link to terrorism. They said the explosion was reportedly caused by the ignition of firework that was to be used in the carnival. Emergency workers swiftly reached the scene to deal with the fire that followed the explosion.
France has been rocked by a number of terror attacks over the past years, most of them claimed by followers of Daesh, a Takfiri terrorist group mainly operating in the Middle East. In November 2015, at least 130 people were killed when seven different places were attacked in Paris in a matter of a night.
Reports say Daesh has hundreds of French nationals among its ranks.
The surge in terror attacks by Daesh in France has been blamed on lax controls allowing the French to join militant groups in Iraq and Syria and then return home without being detected.
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