After the emotion, now is the time to try to understand the motivations of the man who has attacked with a knife two policemen this Monday morning in Cannes, in the Alpes-Maritimes. Around 6:30 a.m., as they went on patrol, the man made a pretext for a request for information in order to approach their car before opening the door and attacking them.
Saved by their bulletproof vest, the two officers are not injured but very shocked. The parquet floor of Grasse indicated this Monday evening that a investigation is open for “attempted assassination of police officers“.
The terrorist trail is not confirmed
“The national anti-terrorist prosecution visited the scene and assesses the advisability of its referral. As it stands, the Grasse prosecutor’s office remains competent“, explains the parquet floor of Grasse in a press release.
He also adds that even though “the first investigations reveal that once immobilized on the ground and questioned by a police officer on the motive for his act, the assailant replied: for the prophet“, the terrorist trail is not confirmed.
The assailant is unknown to the police
Concerning precisely this assailant, it is abouta 37-year-old Algerian national, arrived in Italy in 2008, via Sardinia, and who has since obtained an Italian residence permit. In 2011 he moved to Naples where he became a traveling merchant. Since 2016, this man comes regularly to France and even has a home in Cannes.
Her application for a residence permit “has not been granted“ by the prefecture but the man has in his possession a receipt. According to the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, who came to Cannes at the end of the morning to support the police, the assailant has a blank locker, is unknown to the police and is not listed S.
His vital prognosis is not engaged
The search carried out at the home of the aggressor in Cannes “did not highlight no element of radicalization or membership of a jihadist organization“adds the parquet of Grasse. Hit by two bullets during the response of the police, his vital prognosis is not engaged and he will be heard as soon as his condition allows.