PARIS, France - Thick black smoke billowed above central Paris on Monday after a bus caught fire on the upmarket Saint - Germain boulevard, a Reuters witness said.
Police cordoned off the area as fire fighters put on the flames in the afternoon.
A picture shot by an eyewitness showed a column of thick black smoke rising over the Seine river, only a couple of hundred metres (yards) away from Paris' famous Notre - cathedral, the roof of which was destroyed in a massive fire around three years ago.
