Cannes: what we know about the attack on police officers with knives

Frédéric Michel and Manon Fossat 2:29 p.m., November 08, 2021

THE ESSENTIAL

Police officers were attacked Monday morning with knives in front of the Cannes police station, in the Alpes-Maritimes.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin quickly declared on Twitter that the attacker "was neutralized" by the police officer's colleagues.

He went there around 11 a.m. to meet the attacked crew and take stock of the situation.

The driver of the vehicle and an officer attacked

The facts took place around 6:30 am Monday morning and lasted less than fifteen seconds.

As the Minister of the Interior explained during his press conference, four police officers were in the car and were about to take duty when a lone man approached the vehicle parked in front of the city's central police station to "ask for a intelligence ".

He then opened the car door and stabbed the driver several times on the passenger side as well as another officer in the back of the vehicle.

The two other police officers, a trainee and a young incumbent, immediately intervened and opened fire, twice hitting the assailant in the lower back. 

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A sign of the assailant's violence and determination, the clothes of the attacked police officers were torn.

One of them saw the knife touch the metal plate of his bulletproof vest.

"He wanted to kill a cop," protested the head of a police union.

The four police officers are safe and sound, but "very psychologically shocked", in the words of Gerald Darmanin.

An Algerian in his thirties: what do we know about the suspect?

We also know a little more about the profile of the suspect, currently "between life and death". He is an Algerian in his thirties, unknown to the French services, but who since 2016 has been coming regularly to France thanks to a residence permit obtained in Italy. Recently he had applied for a resident card in our country which was not granted to him. At the time of his passage to the act, he would have according to the police officers evoked the "Prophet Allah".

For now, no investigation has been entrusted to the anti-terrorist prosecution, said Darmanin.

Invited to Europe Midi on Monday, Thierry Clair, deputy secretary general of the UNSA-Police union, recalled that it is necessary "to be truly vigilant", in particular in the face of the terrorist threat.

"For the moment the anti-terrorist prosecution has not been seized. We will see what follows but probably, according to the information obtained this Monday morning, we are heading towards that," he said.

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"We have already seen, in previous attacks against police officers or citizens, this kind of 'low cost' terrorism with individuals who always act cowardly and sometimes have a psychiatric history," continued the unionist.

"The intelligence services are working with great relentlessness and determination and we must not forget all the same the number of foiled attacks."

The case was entrusted to the judicial police of Nice.