A man identified by French authorities as a mentally ill Islamic extremist stabbed a German tourist to death and injured two people this Saturday (2) in Paris before being detained, authorities said.
The attack took place near the Eiffel Tower at night, at a time when France maintains a high level of alert due to increased tensions related to the war between Israel and Hamas.
“We will not give in to terrorism”, declared this Sunday (Saturday night in Brazil) the French Prime Minister, Elizabeth Borne.
“My thoughts are with the victims, the injured and their loved ones. I salute the courage and professionalism of our emergency services,” added Borne.
The anti-terrorism prosecutor said he would take charge of the investigation into the attack.
A police source said the attacker was known to authorities for his Islamic extremism and was being treated for psychiatric problems.
He shouted “Allahu Akbar” (Allah is great) before being arrested, according to the source.
According to the Paris prosecutor’s office, the attacker is a Frenchman born in 1997 who had been detained in an investigation into cases of murder and attempted murder.
French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, who went to the scene of the attack, said the man had been sentenced in 2016 to “four years in prison” for planning another attack that he failed to carry out.
The President of France, Emmanuel Macron, reacted in a message on X, the former Twitter: “I send my condolences to the family and loved ones of the German citizen who died this afternoon in the terrorist attack in Paris, and my thoughts are with the people who are injured and being attended to at this time.”
– Series of attacks –
“A man attacked a couple of foreign tourists. A German tourist born in the Philippines was stabbed to death,” Darmanin said.
According to the minister, a taxi driver who witnessed the incident intervened. The attacker crossed the River Seine and attacked other people, injuring one with a hammer as police chased him.
Police used a stun gun to neutralize the man.
“He threatened them very violently […]. Now he will have to answer for his actions before the courts”, guaranteed Darmanin.
France has faced a series of attacks by Islamic extremists since 2015, including the suicide and armed attacks of November 2015, which left 130 dead in Paris and were claimed by the jihadist group Islamic State.
Tensions have risen in France, a country with large Jewish and Muslim populations, following the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement’s attack on Israel on October 7 and subsequent Israeli bombings of the Gaza Strip.