While the profile of the suspect William M. is becoming clearer five days after the attack on the Kurdish community on rue d'Enghien in Paris, which left three dead and three injured,
Le
Parisien
questioned his parents who, the evening before, shared a game of Scrabble with their son.
"
As if nothing had happened
," says his 90-year-old mother, still stirred.
"
We felt that he had changed in prison
," concede his parents.
William M., 69, was released nine days earlier from 12 months of pre-trial detention at the Health Department, for having attacked migrants with a saber in Bercy Park in December 2021 to the cry of “
Death to migrants!
".
"
He was staring blankly, his gestures were all slow
," his mother continues, going so far as to say that her son has been behaving "
like a zombie these past few days
."
"
But since he spoke very little, we didn't suspect a thing
," she says.
Read alsoShock and anger after the shooting at the Kurdish cultural center in Paris
No alcohol, no phone, no girlfriend
Their eldest son had always had a "
withdrawn
" and "
silent
" character, says his father - "
quite the opposite
" of his youngest.
When the former SNCF railway worker, driver on the Paris-Marseille TGV line, visited his parents, family moments often passed in silence.
Without addiction, without consuming tobacco or alcohol, without even a telephone, William's hobbies were confined to karate sessions - he is a brown belt - and shooting in a club in Yvelines.
“
We never knew him to have a boyfriend or a girlfriend.
When we asked him about it, William kept telling us that he was asexual
,” explain his father and mother.
Do they have an explanation for their son's gesture?
His father, who has been pondering the question for five days, does not believe in the hypothesis of a terrorist attack against the Kurdish community.
The act testifies, according to him, to a "
totally disproportionate revenge
" linked to the burglary of his house in Seine-Saint-Denis
,
six years earlier.
In February 2016, William returns from a party with his parents when he discovers three men in his home, including two 17-year-old minors.
He grabbed a knife and seriously injured two of them in the neck and head.
"
He had only reacted to the intrusion of three people into his home
", justifies his father.
In his home, described by
Le Parisien
as "
barely salubrious
", the police discovered around thirty assault rifles and various weapons of war.
Only three are authorized by his license.
William is remanded in custody then released after a few weeks pending trial.
He then moved into a 6m² room with his parents, in the Montorgueil district, in the 2nd arrondissement of Paris.
No political party
It was on this date that his parents place the birth of his xenophobic sentiment.
“
Recently, two of his three burglars, those who were injured, decided to sue him in civil proceedings and demanded 30,000 euros each in damages.
This increased his rage against foreigners tenfold
,” his mother tries to explain.
However, William has no particular political commitment, to his knowledge.
Just an affinity with far-right parties.
"
When I hear that William could have been ordered by Turks or whoever, it annoys me
," slips the mother, who, unlike her "
left
" husband, has always voted for Le Pen.
Read alsoKurds killed in Paris: the racist track is confirmed
A few days before the attack, a piece of news had "
destroyed
" him, remembers his mother, consulting her diary.
"Will", a lover of the art of shooting, "
vice-champion of Paris in rifle shooting when he was 15
", had learned at his Yvelines club of the death of four comrades in recent months.
The bachelor himself admitted to having been guided by a "
pathological " hatred of "
non-European
" foreigners
, and to having intended to commit suicide if one of the injured victims had not neutralized him.
