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On the day of the French elections: a confused man wants to kill Macron - and stabs the priest and nun

2022-04-24T17:22:08.893Z


On the day of the French elections: a confused man wants to kill Macron - and stabs the priest and nun Created: 04/24/2022, 19:14 By: Kathrin Reikowski Police forensic officers arrive in front of the Saint-Pierre d'Arene church to conduct an investigation following the knife attack. © Valery Hache/AFP/dpa France election: During the election between Le Pen and Macron on Sunday, a man attacked


On the day of the French elections: a confused man wants to kill Macron - and stabs the priest and nun

Created: 04/24/2022, 19:14

By: Kathrin Reikowski

Police forensic officers arrive in front of the Saint-Pierre d'Arene church to conduct an investigation following the knife attack.

© Valery Hache/AFP/dpa

France election: During the election between Le Pen and Macron on Sunday, a man attacked a priest.

He attracted attention with confused statements.

Nice (France) - Nice is again the scene of a brutal attack: on the day of the French elections, a priest is attacked with a knife in a church - and a nun who stands in the way of the attacker.

According to a police spokeswoman, the attack occurred during morning mass in the Saint-Pierre-d'Arène church in the center of the city, not far from the beach promenade.

Neither the life of the priest nor that of the nun are in danger, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin announced on Sunday.

The perpetrator was apparently mentally confused and was arrested.

A nun was also injured.

The final round of the presidential elections will take place in France on Sunday.

France election: After the attack in Nice, a priest in intensive care

As the mayor Christian Estrosi announced, he was already able to talk to the priest and the injured nun in the intensive care unit.

Despite the dramatic incident, the priest is in good shape.

The perpetrator, who did not have a criminal record and came from Fréjus in southern France, stabbed him several times with a seven-centimetre-long knife.

The municipal police and the national police together stormed into the church to overwhelm the attacker.

Psychological help was organized for many of the believers who were shocked after the attack.

The prefect of the Alpes-Maritimes department, Bernard Gonzalez, said the perpetrator had already received psychiatric treatment, including in a relevant clinic.

The man was not recorded as a criminal or a radicalized person.

The authorities therefore initially did not assume that the perpetrator had an extremist background.

France election: The perpetrator wanted to kill Macron - bad memories are awakened in France

As the broadcaster France Info reported with reference to the Ministry of the Interior, the perpetrator said when he was arrested that he wanted to kill President Emmanuel Macron on election day.

Since the confused man did not find the President in the sacristy of the church, he attacked the priest.

The nun got in the way of the attacker, then community members jumped on the man, and a woman hit him with a candlestick.

Also in Nice a year and a half ago, an attacker from Tunisia fatally injured three people, including a sexton, in a knife attack in the Notre-Dame church in the center of the city.

The act was classified as Islamic terrorism.

The most shocking attack on a church in France occurred on July 26, 2016 in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray near Rouen.

During the morning mass, two Islamist-motivated attackers initially took six people hostage.

Then they murdered the priest Jacques Hamel (85) and seriously injured a parishioner.

A nun was able to escape and sound the alarm.

Both attackers were shot dead by the police. You can find all the news about the French elections in our news ticker.

(dpa/kat)

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2022-04-24

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