A German man has died and two others, including a British man, have been injured in a knife and hammer attack on a street in central Paris.
The attack occurred near the Eiffel Tower shortly before 21:00 local time (20:00 GMT) on Saturday. A 26-year-old French man was later arrested, and anti-terrorism prosecutors opened an investigation.
Prosecutor Jean-François Ricard said the suspect had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group (IS). Mr Ricard told a briefing on Sunday that the suspect Armand R, a French national born in France to Iranian parents, made the pledge in a video posted on social media.
He converted to Islam aged 18, the prosecutor said, and was imprisoned in 2016 for four years after making plans to travel to Syria to join IS. Police said he was supposed to be following treatment for psychiatric problems.
Mr Ricard added that the suspect had been under surveillance for suspected extremism and that three associates, including members of his family, had been detained for questioning. Earlier, it was revealed that the victim killed in Saturday night's attack was a German tourist who worked as a nurse.
France's Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said the victim was with his wife when he was attacked and fatally stabbed on Quai de Grenelle. He said the wife's life was saved by the intervention of a taxi driver and that the suspect fled across a nearby bridge spanning the River Seine.
After crossing to the north side of the river he attacked two more people: a French man aged around 60 and a 66-year-old British tourist who was hit in the eye with a hammer. The suspect was then Tasered by police and arrested on suspicion of assassination – defined in French law as premeditated murder – and attempted assassination in relation to a terrorist enterprise.
Video published online appeared to show the moment the suspect was apprehended by armed police not far from where the attack happened. The two people injured were treated by emergency services and on Sunday, Health Minister Aurélien Rousseau told French media they were “in good health”.
Mr Darmanin said the alleged attacker was heard shouting “Allahu Akbar”, Arabic for “God is greatest”, and told police he was upset because “so many Muslims are dying in Afghanistan and in Palestine”. The suspect is also understood to have suggested France was complicit in the deaths of Palestinians in Gaza.
On Saturday, a video was posted on social media in which the suspect criticised the French government and discussed what he described as the murder of innocent Muslims, AFP news agency reports. Writing on X, formerly Twitter, French President Emmanuel Macron sent his thoughts to all those affected by the “terrorist attack” and thanked the emergency services for their response.
“The national anti-terrorist prosecutor's office will now be responsible for shedding light on this affair so that justice can be done in the name of the French people,” he said.
It comes less than two months after a teacher was killed in a knife attack at a high school in the northern city of Arras, prompting the French government to put the country on its highest level of national security alert.
— CutC by bbc.com
