Two deaths, two knife attacks, one in Dresden, the other in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine ... The concern of the German government in the face of "the Islamist terrorist threat" is revived, even if the facts have unfolded over a thousand kilometers away, in Germany and France.
And already, German media associate these two crimes.
On October 4, in the city center of Dresden, in eastern Germany, two German tourists were the target of a knife attack.
One, aged 55, died, his 53-year-old companion was seriously injured.
A 20-year-old Syrian was arrested on Tuesday.
The man has been radicalized since his arrival in Germany in 2015, at the height of the influx of migrants from Syria.
According to the prosecution, he has already been sentenced for acts of violence and for having acted to recruit support for "a terrorist organization".
Several German media describe him as a supporter of the jihadist organization Islamic State (IS, or Daesh).
An "act with probable political motivation"
He was released on September 29, a few days before the fatal attack on Dresden, and remained listed by the police as potentially "dangerous".
His antecedents led the justice to entrust Wednesday the investigations to the German federal prosecutor in Karlsruhe, competent in matters of terrorism.
German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer referred to an "act with probable political motivation".
The attack "once again demonstrates the dangerous nature of Islamist violence" which "requires the greatest vigilance," he added.
In Germany, the young man did not have official refugee status but remained “tolerated” by the authorities.
During his hearing by investigators, he made no statement, specifies the prosecution.
According to German media, his DNA was found on the kitchen knife that was used in the murder, and led to his arrest.
Precedents on German soil
The German authorities are on alert in the face of the Islamist threat weighing on the country, particularly since a ram truck attack claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group which killed 12 in December 2016 at the Berlin Christmas market
Since then, a dozen attempted attacks of this type, including two in November 2019, have been foiled according to the police.
ISIS claimed responsibility in 2016 for a knife murder in Hamburg, a bomb attack in Ansbach, which left 15 injured and killed the assailant, as well as an ax attack on a train in Bavaria (5 injured) whose author was shot dead by the police.
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Chancellor Merkel has often been accused, especially by the far right, of having encouraged these attacks by opening up her country's borders too generously to hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants.
