Actor starts terror alert by reciting lines in train lavatory

AN ACTOR was briefly held as a terror suspect by security services after he popped into a lavatory cubicle on a French high-speed train to practise his lines for an audition.

A train guard overheard the French actor’s soliloquy for an English-language play and became alarmed when he overheard the words “weapon” and “gun”. As the man continued to speak forcefully and did not emerge from the lavatory, the guard sounded the alert and informed railway bosses.

The 35-year-old actor must have been shocked when the Marseille to Paris fast train made an unscheduled stop in the Valence region and armed security forces rushed aboard to take him to a police station. He was later released without charge.

France is still under the state of emergency imposed after the November 2015 attacks in Paris when 130 people were murdered by Islamist extremists in a number of co-ordinated attacks on civilians.

“Taking into account the current context of terrorism and the national threat level, the train guard did not take any risks and for the avoidance of doubt had the man questioned,” a spokesman for the national train company, SNCF, said.

There has been a string of attacks since 2014, including last year’s Bastille Day lorry massacre in Nice which killed 86 people.

Two years ago, a heavily armed gunman opened fire on a high-speed train travelling from Amsterdam to Paris before he was overpowered by three American passengers.