Two women attacked with a knife in Paris: what happened?

This is a case that has generated many reactions on social networks.

The Paris prosecutor's office on Wednesday opened a judicial investigation for "willful violence" accompanied by racist remarks, after the stabbing attack on Sunday of two women near the Eiffel Tower in Paris, AFP learned from the prosecutor's office. Paris.

Two suspects, placed in police custody Tuesday at the 7th arrondissement police station, will be presented to an investigating judge.

This altercation would have been part of the presence considered threatening of a dog by two women, who were then wounded with knives. 

In their complaint, the two women say they have been described as "dirty Arabs" by the two accused.

The case had been widely relayed via a video on social networks, some Internet users denouncing a "media silence" on this attack which they qualified as Islamophobic, a few days after the assassination on Friday of Samuel Paty, the teacher beheaded by from his college in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine.

A tweet published on Monday evening saying the two women had been stabbed "because they were Muslims and veiled" has been retweeted more than 36,000 times. 

Facts reclassified as "willful violence" 

The Paris public prosecutor's office had opened an investigation for "attempted murder", but the facts were reclassified as "willful violence" at the end of police custody.

According to the public prosecutor, this violence is aggravated in particular by the fact that it was committed in a meeting, with the use of a weapon, and that it was accompanied by comments related to "membership or non-membership. , true or supposed "victims" to a specific ethnicity, nation, race or religion ".

The prosecution requested the provisional detention of the two suspects.

According to Me Arié Alimi, the lawyer for the two victims, "they are satisfied with the opening of a judicial investigation and the racist nature retained but consider that it is an attempted homicide."

"It is undeniable that these facts are linked to the political and secularist release against Muslims since the Conflans-Sainte-Honorine attack," he said.

The lawyer therefore announced to AFP a complaint with the constitution of civil party Wednesday to ask to reclassify the investigation as "attempted murder because of the victim's membership of a race or a specific religion" , a criminal qualification.

Racist insults, according to the victims 

According to this complaint, the two victims are aged 19 and 40.

The first received three blows from a bladed weapon, the second six blows, including one puncturing the lung.

This second victim is still in the hospital.

According to this complaint, the two women say they were qualified as "dirty Arabs" by the two women implicated, who also said to them: "Go home", "You are not at home here".

"One of the women was also referring to the veil that several women in the family wore, talking about 'that thing on your head'," according to the complaint.