Two people are believed to be dead and around 70 are still being held hostage at a retirement home for Catholic Monks in Montpellier in the South of France. According to local news sources, armed police scrambled to the Maison de Retraite des Missions Africaines on Thursday night. “An individual, who was masked and armed with a knife and a sawn-off shotgun came into the retirement home where 70 monks live,” a source told Agence France Presse. Police have not yet made a statement on a believed motive, but the attack comes just months after Islamic State supporters murdered a priest in Rouen. The gunman is believed to have been wearing a hood, entering the home at around 9:45pm local time. “A supervisor inside the building raised the alarm very discreetly,” the Mail reports a local police source as having commented. The country is still on a high state of alert for terrorism, with the U.S. government warning that terrorists may seize upon the Christmas period and specifically Christmas markets to attack European nations. More follows…