It is around 11:40 am this Friday, September 25 when a surveillance camera captures the silhouette of a man in a gray jogging suit, an apple green t-shirt and red sneakers.
He passes in front of number 6 rue Nicolas-Appert (Paris XI) and two employees of a production company smoking a cigarette in a recess.
After leaving the field for ten seconds, the stranger turns around and savagely attacks the employees - Lucie, 28, and Pierre-Adrien, 32 - with a chopper about twenty centimeters long.
The latter are hospitalized at the Salpêtrière but their lives are not in danger.
The attack is fleeting, but sounds like the reminiscence of a nightmare: it takes place right next to the former premises of Charlie Hebdo, as recalled by a drawing on the wall representing the journalists and cartoonists of the satirical newspaper killed during the 'terrorist attack of January 7, 2015. “I am Charlie”, we read.
This is "clearly an Islamist terrorist act"
The assailant's motivations remained unknown on Friday evening.
A suspect has been identified as Ali A., born in August 2002 in Islamabad (Pakistan).
Arrested quickly after the fact, he was to be heard in the evening in the premises of the anti-terrorism section (SAT) of the Paris criminal brigade.
Six other people were taken into custody, but their implication is more uncertain.
The national anti-terrorism prosecution took up the investigation, opened for "attempted assassinations in connection with a terrorist enterprise".
Because the attack, in addition to its modus operandi evocative of jihadist groups, is part of a very symbolic context: the trial of the killings of Charlie Hebdo, Montrouge and Hyper Cacher in January 2015 has been held since the beginning of the month in court. Paris court.
And new threats were made by the terrorist group Al-Qaeda against the satirical newspaper after the republication of the Muhammad cartoons that led to him being targeted five years earlier by the Kouachi brothers.
Finally, Pakistan experienced violent protests after the publication of the drawings.
However, the alleged perpetrator is of Pakistani nationality.
VIDEO. Attack near former Charlie Hebdo premises: 2 victims, 2 suspects arrested and wounds rekindled
"This is the moment for the government to reiterate its unwavering attachment to press freedom and its resolute desire to fight terrorism," Prime Minister Jean Castex said on Friday from rue Nicolas-Appert.
In the evening, the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin confirmed on France 2 that it is "clearly an Islamist terrorist act".
Pools of blood on the ground
According to the investigation, the assailant with the chopper hit Lucie in the skull and Pierre-Adrien in the face.
Which testifies to an implacable desire to kill.
Both are employed by the audiovisual company First Lines, the first is responsible for editing schedules, the second is attached to the program "Cash investigation" on France 2.
“I heard screams, at first I thought it was a girl playing until I heard
No, no, no!
, says Fabien, 50, editor.
At the window on the first floor, I then saw a woman from above with her skull that seemed to be open.
Blood was squirting and streaming down his face, it was impressive.
It was exfiltrated by employees of the graphic design company on the ground floor.
"
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A student who passes nearby sees the aggressor attack Pierre-Adrien.
“He hit him in the face and the back of the neck with a large knife, then the victim took refuge in a building.
A lady came out with a towel to treat him.
»Stigmata of the violent attack: pools of blood stain the ground.
The victims are taken care of by the firefighters in survival blankets.
Arrested at the foot of the steps of the Opéra Bastille
No witness said they heard the assailant utter Islamist remarks.
Leaving his bloody chopper on the spot, the latter heads for Richard Lenoir station before disappearing into the metro entrance without causing further injuries.
A vast police force is then deployed to catch up with him: the officials, with pistols in their hands for some, armed with machine guns for others, control the papers of passers-by with authority.
Police officers from the Research and Intervention Brigade (BRI), intervening on the Bataclan and the Hyper Cacher, are called upon.
At around 12:40 p.m., the attacker was finally arrested at the foot of the steps of the Opéra Bastille by the police from the 11th arrondissement.
He is confused by his red sneakers and the bloodstains on his clothes and face.
From a police source, he admitted to the first responders that he was indeed the author of the attack, without further details.
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Attack near the former premises of Charlie Hebdo: who is Ali H., the alleged assailant?
The man has no papers on him but his fingerprints lead to a presumed identification: Ali H., already known for carrying a prohibited weapon.
No letter of allegiance to a terrorist group or of explanations for its action has been found.
A second suspect, a 33-year-old Algerian with whom the first would have had an aside in the metro, was arrested in the early afternoon at the Richard Lenoir metro a few minutes later.
It is not yet known whether he played a role in the commission of the facts.
In the evening, five other suspects aged 24 to 37, partly Pakistani, were in turn arrested in Pantin (Seine-Saint-Denis) where Ali H. lived.
These are his roommates.
The old premises were not under surveillance
Could we have avoided this drama?
The former Charlie Hebdo premises had not been placed under protection or surveillance after Al-Qaeda's “fatwa”.
If the satirical newspaper is now installed in ultra-secure places and held in secrecy, some employees of First Lines wonder about a possible underestimation of the threat by the authorities of the symbol that represents the street Nicolas-Appert.
The company was already a neighbor of Charlie Hebdo in January 2015. “We all wonder about the lack of police protection of the building since the start of the trial.
We are at the very least surprised, it is the only qualifier that I will use for the moment, confides Luc Hermann, director of First lines.
Here, the whole team is in a state of shock like all the people who occupy this building in the City of Paris.
"