Fire forces evacuation of French state radio’s HQ
A FIRE at the Paris headquarters of French state radio has left parts of the building badly damaged.
Plumes of smoke poured from the upper storeys of the massive Maison de la Radio in the 16th arrondissement.
No one was hurt and the building was safely evacuated, but some programmes were disrupted.
The blaze was contained in the early afternoon and there was no risk of it spreading, a fire department spokesman said.
The fire started in a part of the eighth floor that was undergoing renovations and was not being used by staff. In a sign of the building’s national importance, president Francois Hollande interrupted a news conference with Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan to address the incident. He said: “The damage appears considerable.”