Terrorism has struck France again.
At least three people have died this Thursday in Nice, in a brutal knife attack perpetrated in a church by a man who, according to local authorities, assumed the attack as an Islamist act when he was arrested.
Shortly after, the French Embassy in Saudi Arabia confirmed the stabbing of a vigilante, who was injured, at its consulate in Jeddah.
Another man who had threatened policemen with a weapon in Avignon was also killed in the morning, although it is not clear that this third attack has an extremist connection.
Prime Minister Jean Castex has called the attack in Nice "ignoble" and raised the terrorist alert to the highest level.
"This attack as cowardly as it is barbarous puts the whole country in mourning," said Castex in a brief address to the National Assembly after participating in the crisis cell opened at the Ministry of the Interior for the attack in Nice.
"The Government's response will be firm, implacable and immediate," he has promised, at the same time as he has announced that the antiterrorist surveillance plan is being raised to its highest level, that of an "attack emergency", throughout the country.
The Government will also hold a Defense Council on Friday morning focused on the new attacks, which take place at a particularly sensitive time in France, after the beheading two weeks ago of a history professor on the outskirts of Paris who showed cartoons of Muhammad to illustrate a kind of freedom of expression.
This week, in addition, tension has risen considerably due to protests in several Muslim countries over France's firm defense of the right to show cartoons of the prophet or other religious symbols.
Photogallery: The attack, in images
The first attack this Thursday, in Nice, took place around 9 in the morning, inside the Notre Dame basilica, in the center of the city of the French Riviera, in the southeast of the country.
The victims are two women and a man whom the city's mayor, Christian Estrosi, identified as the church's sacristan.
Two of the victims died inside the temple.
According to Agence France Presse, one of them, a woman, was slit her throat by the attacker, who tried to behead her.
Estrosi has not wanted to explicitly confirm this point, although he has said that they have been murdered "in a horrible way" and has evoked the death of Samuel Paty, the history professor beheaded on the outskirts of Paris on October 16 by a young man of origin. Chechen who murdered him for having shown in class some cartoons of Muhammad, the same ones published by
Charlie Hebdo
and which motivated the attacks against the weekly in January 2015. Another woman managed to flee and take refuge in a nearby bar, where she perished shortly after because of of the wounds.
The Antiterrorist Prosecutor's Office has opened an investigation for "murder for terrorist purposes", for "attempted terrorist murder" and for "terrorist criminal association", as confirmed by judicial sources to this newspaper.
The president, Emmanuel Macron, will arrive in the popular city of the Côte d'Azur this noon, the Elysee has announced.
The National Assembly, which was in session to discuss the entry into force of a new national confinement due to coronavirus, interrupted the meeting and held a minute of silence.
Estrosi, who quickly went to the scene of the attack, has denounced an act of "Islamofascism" and has assured that the alleged aggressor, who is being treated in a hospital after being wounded by a bullet by the police who quickly went to the area of the attack, assumed the act as an Islamist.
According to some media, the man would have identified himself as “Brahim” and claims to be 25 years old, although his identity has not yet been confirmed.
“Nice, like France, today is paying too heavy a tribute by being a victim, once again, of Islamofascism (…) The perpetrator has not stopped repeating
allahu akbar
[Allah is great]
in front of us.
when he was treated by doctors at the scene of the events ”, Estrosi declared.
French police forensics outside the church after the attack.
In video, the images of the police intervention and the visit of the mayor of the city, Christian Estrosi, VALERY HACHE / AFP (VIDEO: REUTERS)
Shortly after the attack in Nice, the French Embassy in Saudi Arabia has confirmed that a man attacked with a knife a guard at the French Consulate in Jeddah, the second city of Saudi Arabia, this Tuesday, reports
Ángeles Espinosa
.
"The attacker was immediately detained by the security forces," according to the French Embassy, which has condemned an attack "that nothing can justify."
State television has said that the author was a Saudi citizen.
The security guard is out of danger.
Although Saudi Arabia has been the scene of attacks on Western interests in the past, knife attacks like this one are rare.
However, three Spanish dancers were subjected to a similar attack in November 2019 while performing at a theater festival in Riyadh.
The attacker, a Yemeni, was sentenced to death the following month.
The Desert Kingdom, whom many analysts blame for having spread the radical interpretation of Islam on which violent Islamic extremists rely, condemned the cartoons of Muhammad for which Paty was assassinated on Tuesday and rejected any link between Islam and terrorism. .
Little is known at the time of the alleged attack in Avignon.
Local media have confirmed that the police killed a man who had thrown himself at some officers with a knife, around 11.00 in the morning, although at the moment only the Europe1 station claims that
Allahu akbar
was
shouting
when he was killed.