The French authorities said that they had arrested a person as part of the investigations into a shooting targeting a Greek Orthodox priest in the eastern city of Lyon, while the authorities arrested a Tunisian yesterday, Saturday, in the case of the attack that targeted a church last Thursday in Nice, in the south of the country. 4.
The prosecutor in Lyon, Nicolas Jacques, stated that the suspect was arrested in attacking a Greek priest who was closing his church on Saturday noon in the city, and added that the detainee's specifications matched the description provided by eyewitnesses, and Jacquet said that the suspect was not carrying a weapon when He was arrested.
A source in the French police said in televised statements that the attacker targeted the Greek priest with a hunting rifle before he fled, and the same source added that the priest was lying in intensive care in the hospital, and that his condition was dangerous.
The Ministry of Interior asked citizens to avoid approaching the area in which the attack occurred.
Lyon Mayor Gregory Doucet said it was not clear why the attacker had shot the priest, and a source with local prosecutors in Lyon said that they had opened an investigation into the attempted murder. French BFM TV said. The French counterterrorism attorney general's office has not intervened as usual, when law enforcement officials suspect a link to terrorism.
Nice attack
The attack on the priest in Lyon came 3 days after the attack on a church in Nice, leaving 3 people dead.
A French judicial source announced yesterday, Saturday, that the authorities have arrested a 29-year-old Tunisian, which brings the number of detainees to 4, in the case of the attack on Nice Church.
The Tunisian, who is suspected of communicating with the attacker, who is also a Tunisian, was arrested in the Grasse region, about 45 km from Nice.
A 47-year-old suspect was arrested Thursday after he appeared alongside the attacker in CCTV footage, and a second suspect, aged 35, was arrested in Nice on Friday evening, and a French judicial source reported that a third person (33 years) close to the second suspect had been arrested. .
Initial investigations indicate that the main perpetrator of the Nice attack arrived in the city 24 or 48 hours before the knife attack, which resulted in 3 deaths.
The Tunisian judiciary stated that the perpetrator of the Nice attack - who arrived in France in an irregular manner - has judicial precedents in Tunisia, ranging from public right cases to violence and drugs, and the Tunisian judicial authorities have launched investigations into the incident.
Qais and Macron
In a related context, Tunisian President Kais Said discussed with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron the repercussions of the Nice incident, and according to a statement by the Tunisian presidency, the call touched on relations between the two countries, in addition to the terrorist operations that France witnessed, and the Tunisian President Macron expressed his condemnation And his condemnation of all forms of violence and terrorism, stressing that Islam is innocent of these.
French government ministers had warned of the possibility of further attacks, and President Macron announced that the number of security forces charged with protecting places of worship and schools had increased from 3,000 to 7,000.
In addition to these, about 7 thousand other security personnel, half of them from the gendarmerie’s reserves, will be placed, as of Monday, at the disposal of district governors to ensure security.
Two weeks ago, a teacher was killed in a suburb of Paris by an 18-year-old attacker who was apparently angry at the teacher's display of an insulting caricature of the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, in a classroom.