France investigates deadly knife attack outside Paris as terrorist attack

Several police officers block a street near the Rambouillet police station, where the murder took place.BERTRAND GUAY / AFP

A police officer died this Friday after being stabbed in the neck by a man at a police station in Rambouillet, southwest of Paris. After being injured in detention, the alleged assailant has also died, according to the French press. At the moment the reasons for the attack are unknown, although the anti-terrorist Prosecutor's Office has taken up the case, which indicates that at least there is enough evidence to suspect a terrorist attack.

According to sources from the antiterrorist Prosecutor's Office have confirmed to this newspaper, an investigation was opened this Friday "for the murder of a person who is the custodian of public authority in relation to a terrorist action" and for "terrorist association" that has been jointly entrusted to the Central Directorate of the Judicial Police and the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI), the internal intelligence service.

"The terrorist track is being seriously considered", also said the president of the Parisian region of Île-de-France, Valérie Pécresse, who immediately traveled to Rambouillet.

There are also the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, and the Prime Minister, Jean Castex, who had previously condemned on Twitter a "barbarous gesture of infinite cowardice."

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According to the first information, the events took place around 2:20 pm at the Rambouillet police station, about 60 kilometers from Paris.

The deceased is a 48-year-old police officer who for unknown reasons received at least one fatal stab to the neck as she entered the police station after her lunch break.

Despite the intervention of firefighters, the woman died in the same place of the attack.

The attacker, who according to Agence France Presse is of Tunisian origin, was seriously wounded by a gunshot during his arrest and has subsequently died.

According to the BFMTV chain, the documents that have been found among the attacker's belongings indicate - as long as they are authentic papers - that he was born in 1984 and arrived in France in 2009. The attacker was not listed in any of the radicalization files of the law enforcement agencies, according to the sources consulted by the station.

At the moment, the investigation is in the hands of the Versailles Judicial Police, while the antiterrorist Prosecutor's Office analyzes whether there are sufficient elements to take up the case.