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A French man suspected of killing a German-Filipino vacationer with a knife and wounding two different folks in Paris on Saturday had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, in accordance with officers.
French authorities mentioned they had been investigating the killing close to the Eiffel Tower as a terrorist assault.
France has been on excessive alert in current weeks after ratcheting up its safety degree towards the backdrop of the Israel-Hamas war. Paris is because of host the Olympic Video games in July subsequent yr.
The suspect, a 26-year-old French man who was arrested after police intervened with tasers, had pledged allegiance to Islamic State in a video on social media earlier than the assault, the general public prosecutor for anti-terrorism Jean-François Ricard mentioned.
The suspect had been convicted in 2018 of intent to commit a terror assault and was recognized to have wished to journey to Iraq or Syria just a few years earlier, Ricard informed a information convention.
He was launched from jail in 2020, and had a report of psychiatric issues for which he acquired therapy.
“He got here from a household which was not engaged in any respect religiously, transformed to Islam at 18 in 2015 and quickly turned to jihadi ideology,” Ricard mentioned.
The suspect first attacked a pair close to the Eiffel Tower on Saturday night, fatally stabbing the German-Filipino vacationer, in accordance with officers.
He then assaulted a French man and British lady with a hammer, earlier than being stopped by police, the officers mentioned. The 2 injured folks have been launched from hospital, Ricard mentioned.
The suspect had informed police he might not stand seeing Muslims die in Gaza, French inside minister Gérald Darmanin mentioned.
“He informed police who had simply arrested him that he might not bear . . . to see Muslims die, in Afghanistan and in Palestine,” Darmanin informed reporters.
He confirmed the suspect, who was born within the rich Parisian suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine, was on a police watchlist.
French President Emmanuel Macron mentioned on social media web site X: “I’m addressing all my condolences to the household and cherished one of many German nationwide who died . . . within the terror assault in Paris.”
Macron was in Qatar over the weekend, the place he was engaged in talks to attempt to renew a truce within the Israel-Hamas battle, in addition to pursue a long-term ceasefire.
France raised its safety degree to the very best attainable in October after a knifeman of Chechen origin killed a teacher in a faculty within the northern metropolis of Arras. The assault was condemned by Macron on the time as “barbaric Islamist terrorism”.
The federal government has warned that the battle between Israel and Hamas might encourage radicalised people in France to hold out assaults.
A whole bunch of antisemitic incidents have additionally been registered by police in France because the begin of the battle. The authorities have been on excessive alert to guard the nation’s Jewish neighborhood, the biggest in Europe.
Germany’s international minister Annalena Baerbock condemned the assault in Paris. “Hate and terror haven’t any place in Europe,” she mentioned on X.
The assault occurred by the banks of the river Seine, in an space typically visited by vacationers for views of the town at evening.
“Simply forward of the Olympic Video games it’s a robust image . . . to assault Paris, the French capital, and the Eiffel Tower,” mentioned Jérémy Redler, mayor of the sixteenth arrondissement the place the later a part of the assaults came about, on BFM TV.
The assault has prompted some criticism of Macron and his authorities, together with from far-right politician Jordan Bardella.
“The suspect . . . was not solely on a radicalisation watchlist, however had additionally been in jail,” Bardella mentioned. “We want extra than simply phrases.”
Extra reporting by Patricia Nilsson in Frankfurt