Lourdes suicide bombing foiled

Security guards at the Lourdes shrine in south-west France have foiled an attempted suicide bombing at the shrine today.

A man tried to drive a car packed with explosives into an area where 40,000 Catholic pilgrims had gathered to celebrate Assumption Day mass.

Security guards stopped the car a few hundred feet from the pilgrims.

The man, a Spaniard in his 70s, said he was merely trying to commit suicide and had no religious or political motive.