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Paris – Friday’s attack on offices near the former headquarters of the satirical magazine “Charlie Hebdo” reopened the scars of the 2015 attack on the magazine, in which two people were injured in the new attack, which the French interior minister said ” an Islamic terrorist attack “.
With the initiation of investigations and the continued persecution of the suspects involved in the incident, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanan suggested that the Paris attack was an “Islamic terrorist act.”
The minister explained in a statement to “France 2” TV that the attack took place “in the street that housed the headquarters of Charlie Hebdo, and this is the approach of the Islamic terrorists, and there is no doubt that it is a new and bloody attack against our country. “
The man on Friday carried out an attack with a knife, wounding two people in the street next to the former headquarters of Charlie Hebdo in Paris, in an accident that coincides with the trial of the alleged accomplices of the perpetrators of the attack that targeted the satirical newspaper five and a half years ago.
The French Antiterrorist Prosecutor’s Office took over the investigation of the case that commemorated the painful year 2015 in France during which it witnessed the January attacks against Charlie Hebdo and the bloodiest of November 13.
The two injured work for the “Promier Linnae” agency, but their status “is not in danger”, according to Prime Minister Jean Castex, who inspected the crash site on Nicolas Appér street in eastern Paris, where police personnel were deployed. .
“It is tragic to see the photos of the attack on (Calle) Nicolas again. They appear five and a half years after the attack on Charlie (Hebdo),” wrote Reporters Without Borders general secretary Christophe Delaware on Twitter. This violence represents a threat to all of us, in France and elsewhere ”in the world.
Castex affirmed the “government’s commitment to freedom of the press and its willingness to fight terrorism by all possible means.”
For its part, the management of the daily Charlie Hebdo, which has moved to a secret headquarters and under close protection since the attack that killed 11 of its newsroom, expressed through Twitter “its support and solidarity with its former neighbors and the people affected by this heinous attack “.
“The main suspect has been arrested and is now in police custody,” said Paris prosecutor Remy Hitz, who was immediately on the scene. He did not give further details about his personal file or possible motive, noting that a second person had been detained to verify his “relationship with the main author” of the attack.
The French antiterrorist prosecutor said he had opened an investigation into an assassination attempt linked to a terrorist act.
The French prosecutor against terrorism said he had opened an investigation into “an assassination attempt linked to a terrorist act” and a “terrorist criminal association”.
Its president, Jean-Francois Ricard, said the suspect was an 18-year-old boy and initial indications indicated that he was born in Pakistan and was arrested in June for possession of a knife.
He added that another 33-year-old Algerian national was detained at the Place Bastille before being released after being questioned.
“Two of my colleagues were smoking under the building on the street,” said a witness who works for the agency “Promier Linne”, which is based on this street. I heard a scream. I went to the window and saw one of them with blood on him being chased by a man carrying a knife.
This news agency adjacent to the daily Charlie Hebdo witnessed the 2015 attack by the Kouachi brothers on the editorial board of the weekly.
“Around noon, we went for a lunch break at a restaurant,” said Hassani Arwan, 23, a hairdresser who works at a salon near the venue. When we arrived, the owner of the restaurant shouted: ‘They left, they left, there was an attack … We left quickly and entered the room, closed it and stayed there, since there were also four customers.
On January 7, 2015, brothers Sherif and Said Kouachi killed 11 people in an attack targeting the editorial board of the satirical weekly, before they fled and killed a policeman.
The next day, Amedi Coulibaly killed a policewoman in Montrouge, on the outskirts of Paris, and on January 9, four people, all Jews, were killed when he took hostages at the “Yber Cashier” store on the eastern outskirts of Paris. Paris.
The police killed Coulibaly after breaking into the store, and the Kouachi brothers were killed by special forces of the French police at a printing press where they had taken refuge in Damartan-en-Jules, northeast of Paris.
The series of attacks in France since January 2015 has killed 258 people. Five years later, the level of terrorist threat remains “very high”, according to the Interior Ministry.
The attack comes at a time when the editorial board of the Charlie Hebdo newspaper is under new threats since the reissue of the Prophet Muhammad cartoons on September 2, coinciding with the start of the trial, which will last until November 10, in relation to the attacks of January 2015.
After a brief suspension of the trial, the session resumed without mentioning the attack by the special criminal court in Paris.
Earlier this week, Charlie Hebdo’s director of human resources, Marika Brett, was escorted from her home with police due to threats deemed serious.
Following these threats, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanan called for “a reevaluation of the threats to Charlie Hebdo journalists and collaborators.”
On Wednesday, 100 media outlets, including newspapers, magazines and television and radio channels, published an open letter calling on the French to mobilize for freedom of expression.
