PARIS — A large police force has been deployed in southern France after a man suspected of having killed a woman shot at an officer.

The man shot at a gendarme on Sunday without injuring him when officers came in to question him after a 32-year-old woman was found dead in Plan-de-la-Tour, a town overlooking the Gulf of Saint-Tropez, in the Var département. She was shot in the head.

A source told the AFP news agency that the man "refused to be interviewed and went into hiding in his house."

Officers from the elite National Gendarmerie Intervention Group (GIGN) were later deployed in the village, with reinforcements from Paris arriving on Monday morning.

The 600 residents of Greoliers, were urged to stay at home. — Euronews