Described as
“half-vagabond and half-unbalanced”,
Kassogue S. carried out a bloody attack in the heart of Paris, without any warning system clearly being able to hinder him.
Beyond the legitimate emotion and the feeling of public helplessness that this attack inspires, it remains to be understood why this Malian recently crossed the Alps before being caught, Saturday morning at the Gare de Lyon, with a whiff delusion which led him to attack three people with a knife and hammer and to set fire to his own backpack.
The vital prognosis of the most seriously injured victim “
would still be compromised
,” the public prosecutor said on Sunday.
Spontaneously, the assailant admitted to the PJ that he suffered from psychiatric disorders.
Medicines found in what remained of his personal effects attest to this, as does an appointment ticket for a consultation at the Turin hospital, where he would have already been interned.
In view of a
“psychiatric state incompatible with the measure of restraint”,
his police custody was lifted on Saturday evening so that he could be taken to the psychiatric infirmary of the Paris police headquarters.
Formerly called the “special infirmary”, this unit functions like a singular sorting station for the worst contemporary neuroses and psychoses.
After a night and a morning of medical surveillance in this discreet building in the 14th arrondissement, Kassogue S. was taken into police custody again.
As if the effects of his mental pathology oscillated from one hour to the next.
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Enigmatic message
According to the latest elements of the investigation, the man whom the authorities present as a
“legal migrant”
arrived in France on February 1, with proper papers established in Italy, where he has lived legally since 2016. During When he was arrested, he presented a driving license to the police.
Dispatched to the site, the prefect of police, Laurent Nuñez, confirmed that he held a
“completely valid title issued in 2019”.
Before investigators from the 2nd judicial police district, this thirty-year-old said he wanted to
“kill people”.
But nothing could put the authorities on alert since this “walking bomb” was unknown to the services, both in France and in Italy.
Off the radar, Kassogue S. is presented as a
“non-radicalized practicing Muslim”.
As such, he is therefore not included in the 20% of people subject to “active monitoring” in the File of reports for the prevention of radicalization of a terrorist nature (FSPRT) of individuals who present with psychiatric disorders. or well-documented neurological disorders.
In total, the FSPRT has around a thousand people.
It's not just a news item.
Homicide attempts have increased by almost 80% over ten years, reflecting the security situation which has been deteriorating for more than twenty years.
Frédéric Lauze, boss of the National Union of Commissioners
In the hours following his arrest, the police became interested in a TikTok account, opened in the name of the attacker, on which there appears a black man with glasses, bearded and close-cropped hair.
On one of the videos, dated December 2, 2023, the author of the account wrote this enigmatic message: “
RIP
(rest in peace, Editor's note)
in three months, may Allah welcome me to his paradise
”.
In other videos, he expresses his resentment towards France, referring to the French military intervention in Mali, with the words:
“Africa must never forgive France.”
While in police custody, Kassogue S. once again castigated
France's “
colonial past ”.
If the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor's Office said it remained
"under observation",
the police prefect clarified that the first elements of the investigation do not
"suggest that this is a terrorist act".
But, on Sunday, many voices refused to read the stabbing attack at the Gare de Lyon through the sole prism of psychiatry.
For Frédéric Lauze, the boss of the National Union of Commissioners, “
this is not just a news item.
Homicide attempts have increased by almost 80% over ten years, reflecting the security situation which has been deteriorating for more than twenty years
.
Behind this tragedy which left three people injured, one of them seriously, is emerging every day more and more a country which is sinking into ordinary violence.