Terror probe as two held over stabbings
FRENCH terrorism authorities are investigating a double stabbing outside the former Paris offices of a satirical newspaper where a dozen people were killed in 2015.
Two suspects have been arrested after yesterday’s violence, authorities said.
France’s counter-terrorism prosecutor said authorities suspect a terrorist motive because of the place and timing of the stabbing.
It happened in front of the building where Charlie Hebdo was based until the Islamic extremist attack on its cartoonists and at a time when suspects in the 2015 attack are on trial in the city.
Prosecutor Jean-francois Ricard said the chief suspect in the stabbings was arrested, along with another person.
Mr Ricard said the assailant did not know the people who were stabbed – two workers in a documentary production company who had stepped outside for a cigarette break. The suspects’ identities have
not been released and it is unclear exactly what prompted the attack.
An investigation has opened into “attempted murder in relation with a terrorist enterprise”, according to an official at the terrorism prosecutor’s office.
French Prime Minister Jean Castex said the lives of the two wounded workers are not in danger.
He offered the government’s solidarity with their families and colleagues.
Police flooded the neighbourhood in eastern Paris near the Richard Lenoir subway station, which remained cordoned off hours later.
“All the team at Charlie offers support and solidarity to its former neighbours and colleagues at PLT
Vfilms and to the people hit by this odious attack,” Charlie Hebdo tweeted.
The prime minister noted the “symbolic site” of the attack “at the very moment where the trial into the atrocious acts against Charlie Hebdo is under way”.
He promised the government’s “unfailing attachment to freedom of the press, and its determination to fight terrorism”.
The two people confirmed injured worked for documentary film company Premieres Lignes, according to founder Paul Moreira.
He told BFM television that the attacker fled into the subway, and the company’s staff members were evacuated.
Mr Moreira said a man in the street “attacked two people who were in front of the building, didn’t enter the building, and who attacked them with an axe and who left”.
He said the company had not received any threats.