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Three people died in a terrorist attack with a knife in a Catholic church in the center of Nice, on the French Côte d’Azur, announced the mayor of the city, Christian Estrosi.
The councilor assured that the perpetrator was seriously injured during his arrest by the municipal police and that he did not stop shouting “Allah is great” when he was reduced.
(Also read: France decrees new confinement after escalation of covid-19)
Estrosi noted that one of the deceased is the sacristan of the Church of Our Lady of Nice, a neo-Gothic temple located in the heart of the city. The other mortal victim is a woman who would have been beheaded, the mayor pointed out to the television channel BFMTV.
The third deceased, who managed to escape and take refuge in a nearby bar after being seriously injured, later died. The Antiterrorist Prosecutor’s Office opened an investigation for “murder for terrorist purposes”, among other charges.
France raised the level of security alert throughout the country to “urgent attack” after the attack, Prime Minister Jean Castex announced. This level corresponds to a state of maximum vigilance and protection. The French prime minister condemned “an attack as cowardly as it is savage that puts the whole country in mourning.”
For his part, the mayor attributed the attack to “Islamofascism” and assured that he has spoken with the president, Emmanuel Macron, who plans to travel there in the next few hours.
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Christians must not become a symbol to be destroyed
The French Conference of Bishops (CEF) described the attack as “unspeakable” and said that “Christians must not become a symbol to be destroyed.” “I can only strongly condemn the cowardice of this act against innocent people”Abdallah Zekri, general delegate of the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM), told AFP.
The events took place at 9:00 am (local time) in a city that was already the scene in 2016 of a serious Islamist attack that caused 86 deaths.
Police cordoned off the area immediately and the bomb squad moved to that point, where several detonations were heard that the Prefecture attributed to their operations.
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The Minister of the Interior, Gérarld Darmanin, opened a crisis cell to which Castex joined, which abandoned its presentation in the National Assembly of the confinement measures to face the covid-19 pandemic.
After observing a minute of silence in the Chamber of Deputies, the head of the Government assured that he could not continue with his speech in these moments of gravity and appealed to the “unity” and “cohesion” of the nation.
The attack comes two weeks after Samuel Paty, a teacher at a secondary school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, on the outskirts of Paris, was beheaded after showing caricatures of Muhammad in his classes.
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Support for France
The European Union showed its solidarity with France on Thursday. “All my solidarity with France and the French. My thoughts go out to the victims of the abominable attack in Nice and to their close friends. All of Europe is with you,” European Council President Charles Michel wrote on Twitter.
All my solidarity with France and the French.
My thoughts are with the victims of the heinous attack on #Nice and your loved ones.
All of Europe is with you.
– Charles Michel (@eucopresident) October 29, 2020
The President of the European Parliament, David Sassoli, also added to the condolences and sent a message of solidarity. “I am deeply shocked and terrified by the news of the horrible attack in Nice. It is the pain we all feel in Europe. We have a duty to unite against violence and against those who seek to incite and spread hatred, “Sassoli posted on the same social network.
The President of the Italian Government, Giuseppe Conte, stressed the defense of the value of freedom by condemning the “vile attack”. For Conte, this terrorist attack “does not affect the common front in defense of the values of freedom and peace,” he said in a message on Twitter.
“Our certainties are stronger than fanaticism, hatred and terror. We embrace the families of the victims and our French brothers. We are United! “, The Italian Prime Minister wrote in two tweets in his language and in French.
AFP AND EFE
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