Kevin R., 31, would have justified his acting out by spontaneously explaining to the police that he wanted to “kill Macron”. He was placed in a psychiatric hospital that evening.
A priest and a nun were injured with a knife this Sunday, April 24 in the morning in Nice, according to information from nice morning confirmed at Figaro by the Nice prosecutor’s office and a source familiar with the matter. The facts occurred in the Saint-Pierre-d’Arène church, located rue de la Buffa, south of the city.
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Around 10 a.m., just before the 10:30 a.m. service, an individual entered the church and immediately went towards the priest Krzyzstof Rudzinski, 57 years old and of Polish origin. He stabbed him several times – about twenty according to our source – mainly in the chest. It was while trying to intervene and disarm the attacker that Sister Marie-Claude, aged 72, was slightly injured in the hand.
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Both victims were quickly attended to by firefighters. Their lives are not in danger according to the first findings of the doctors, reported by several sources and confirmed in the process by the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin, who spoke on Twitter. “No vital prognosis engaged”he wrote, also testifying his “solidarity with parishioners“. The minister wished to congratulate thesecurity forces who quickly arrested the author“.
“Caution is needed”
Regarding the motivations of the attacker, who was quickly arrested in possession of a seven centimeter long knife, they remain unclear at this stage of the investigations. The suspect was placed Sunday evening in a psychiatric hospital at the end of his police custody.
Born in 1991 in Fréjus and living in Nice, Kevin R. spontaneously declared to the police that he was “of the Jewish faith» and that on this election day, he wanted «kill Macron“, but that he had finally fallen back on a church, according to a police source. Obviously bipolar, the latter had recently been admitted to free hospitalization at the Sainte-Marie hospital in Nice for psychiatric disorders. He was also unknown to the police and intelligence services. The investigation, entrusted to the judicial police of Nice, ruled out the trail of an act of a terrorist nature.
The public prosecutor of Nice, Xavier Bonhomme, went there at midday. “Caution is required“, he said during a point with the press, in reference, in particular, to the statements of the respondent.
The area was cordoned off by the police. The deputy (LR) of the Alpes-Maritimes Éric Ciotti, who also went there, denounces on Twitter “a horrific attack on a priest and a nun“. Christian Estrosi (ex-LR), the mayor of the city, also shares his “support for all the faithful of Saint-Pierre d’Arène» and wishes «a speedy recovery to Father Christophe and Sister Marie-Claude“. In addition, the aedile suggested that the attack on the priest could have been premeditated, the attacker having “acquired a seven centimeter long knife a few days ago”.
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