Six people were injured by the author of the attack, whose vital prognosis is engaged. The terrorist track is not privileged.
Through The Point.fr (with AFP)
Published on
– Modified
Ustabbing attack in the busiest station in France. This Wednesday, January 11, shortly before 7 a.m., a stabbing attack took place in the Gare du Nord in Paris. Six people were injured, including one seriously, by a man immediately overpowered by the police on the spot, Agence France-Presse learned from a police source and from the Paris prosecutor’s office. Among the six injured is also a police officer from the PAF (Border Police).
The assailant was neutralized by the police, who used their firearm. Gérald Darmanin, who went there, said the police fired “three shots”. “Without the rapid intervention of the police and bystanders, there would have been more victims. Thank you to the police for their effective and courageous reaction”, judged the Minister of the Interior, specifying that the first facts took place at 6:42 a.m., before the police used their weapon at 6:00 p.m. h 43. According to a police source, contacted by Pointoff-duty police officers from the railway network brigade, in civilian clothes, intervened when they were leaving their service.
At the end of the day, the profile of the attacker was revealed. He is a Libyan born in 2000 under an obligation to leave French territory (OQTF), we learned from a police source. The man being of Libyan nationality, France could not deport him to his country because of the instability which reigns there, the same source added. The assailant, whose vital prognosis is engaged, was taken care of on the spot by the emergency services, before being hospitalized, according to the prosecution. He is injured in the arm and in the lung.
As for the weapon used by the suspect, it is not a knife “but a dangerous weapon that he would have made himself”.
Open investigation, the vital prognosis of the suspect engaged
There was no evidence on Wednesday evening to suggest a terrorist attack, according to a source familiar with the matter. This hypothesis “is not preferred”, it was commented. The National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office (Pnat) told Agence France-Presse that it was, for the time being, “under evaluation”. An investigation for attempted murder was opened by the Paris prosecutor’s office and entrusted to the judicial police.
The Gare du Nord is the leading station in Europe and the third station in the world in terms of traffic since it welcomes 700,000 people per day and more than 220 million visitors per year. Departing trains serve the north of France, but also international destinations such as London via the Eurostar, or Belgium and the Netherlands via the Thalys.