A gunman who took six hostages in a bank in the northern French port city of Le Havre gave himself up to police, officials said late Thursday.

"The hostages have been freed, safe and sound," Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said, hours after an elite RAID police unit had been deployed.

The gunman, aged 34, had entered the premises at 4:45 pm (1445 GMT), a police official told AFP.

The man had a history of psychiatric problems and had been in trouble previously for kidnapping and firearms offences, a source close to the case said.

The hostages were seized in a branch of Bred bank, a mid-sized French lender, French media reported. The branch is on the ground floor of a six-story residential building.

Le Havre is a town of around 170,000 people on the English Channel, about 200 kilometers (124 miles) north-west of Paris.