Knife attack in the French city of Nice | Courtesy: Twitter / @jongaunt
Nice: At least three people were killed in a knife attack on Thursday outside a church in the southern French city of Nice. Officials reportedly said that a man wielding a knife cut a person’s throat and injured several more. Subsequent reports said two more had died, bringing the toll to three.
Unconfirmed reports said that one of the victims, a woman, was beheaded by the attacker. A police source was also cited by Reuters as if to say that a woman was feared to have been beheaded in the knife attack.
Far-right French politician Marine Le Pen told reporters at the French Parliament in Paris that a “beheading” had occurred in the attack.
The incident happened in the morning. Police said the alleged attacker was quickly detained.
“There was a knife attack, two people were killed. The alleged attacker was detained,” police said in an initial statement on Twitter.
French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin tweeted that he called a crisis meeting after the attack.
The mayor of Nice described the attack as an act of “terrorism”. According to Mayor Christian Estrosi, the attack took place in or near the city’s Notre Dame church and one of those killed was the basilica’s janitor.
The mayor told reporters that the suspect had “endlessly repeated ‘Allahu Akbar’ (God is the greatest) when he was being treated at the scene.”
Row over Prophet cartoons
The attack came at a time when France is still agreeing to the beheading earlier this month of French high school teacher Samuel Paty by a man of Chechen origin.
The attacker had killed Paty as “punishment” for showing cartoons of the prophet Muhammad to schoolchildren during a lesson. Displaying cartoons of the Prophet is considered blasphemy in Islam.
The motive for the Nice attack was not immediately clear. Nor could it be said whether the cartoons of the Prophet were a trigger for today’s attack.
French officials have supported the right to show the cartoons and the majority of the Muslim world has accused French President Emmanuel Macron of pursuing an anti-Islamic agenda.
