A man has lost his life, and two others have been injured in a disturbing knife and hammer attack on a street in central Paris, France.
The attack transpired on Quai de Grenelle, near the Eiffel Tower, just before 21:00 local time (20:00 GMT) on Saturday.
Anti-terrorism prosecutors have launched an investigation after a 26-year-old French national, known to security services, was arrested.
Authorities have stated that the individual killed in the incident was a German national.
The victim, born in 1999, was fatally stabbed while in the company of his wife, as stated by France’s Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin.
The Interior Minister stated that the wife’s life was saved by a taxi driver’s intervention, and the suspect fled across a nearby bridge over the River Seine.
The minister stated that the man, after the initial incident, attacked two more people, causing injury, including hitting one in the eye with a hammer.
The police, following the use of a Taser, arrested the suspect on suspicion of assassination, a term legally defined as pre-meditated murder, and attempted assassination within the context of a terrorist enterprise.
Both a Frenchman around 60 and a foreign tourist, the two injured individuals, were attended to by emergency services and were determined to be in non-life-threatening condition.
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Authorities issued a warning to avoid the area as a police operation was underway around the Bir-Hakeim metro station on Saturday night.
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”.
He said the suspect served four years in jail after being convicted for planning another attack in 2016 and was on the French security services watchlist.
The man was also known to have suffered psychiatric disorders, Mr Darmanin said.
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.
The current incident happened less than two months after a teacher was fatally attacked with a knife at a high school in Arras, resulting in the French government placing the country on its highest level of national security alert.