The Metz public prosecutor Christian Mercuri did not rule out Monday evening that the attack on the Dieuze gendarmerie during which a gendarme opened fire on an assailant, a 19-year-old soldier armed with a knife, or a terrorist act.
A call anticipating a "carnage"
"We must relate the facts to a call received by the operational center of the gendarmerie shortly before in which an individual declared that he was a soldier, that there was going to be carnage in Dieuze and that he claimed to be ISIS, "the magistrate told reporters. "For the moment we have no confirmation of the link between the author and this claim", but the Metz prosecution has "obviously taken up contact with the National Antiterrorist Prosecutor's Office of Paris" which will say shortly if it "seizes or not ", he continued.
A young soldier hired since early December
For the time being, "we are in a common law investigation qualified as an attempted homicide on a police officer," he insisted. The telephone threats, said the magistrate, were received "in the minutes preceding the act" and "gendarmes intervened to ensure the protection of staff and families living in this gendarmerie". The assailant, he recalled, faced "a soldier of the gendarmerie who was obliged to use his service weapon", shooting "twice". Transported to Metz hospital, the young soldier who had "joined the army in early December" was operated.
The gendarme, author of the shots, "for his part was slightly wounded in the arm by the knife and hospitalized", according to the prosecutor.