The knife attack on a police officer in Paris on Thursday – whose “injury is serious” but “whose life is not in danger” – has “no terrorist motivation at this stage, nor any link with the Olympic Games”, which open in a week, French authorities have indicated.
The attacker, “a 27-year-old foreigner with legal status and unknown to the intelligence services”, was “very seriously injured” and found himself “in cardiac arrest”, police prefect Laurent Nuñez added to the press.
The police officer was injured by a man who had been turned away from a nearby Louis Vuitton store, who had requested police intervention, according to an account of the events reported to AFP by a police source.
“At the sight of the police, the man fled with a knife in his hand and, during an about-face, injured a police officer in the ear,” added another police source.
“A police officer was the victim of an attack in the 8th arrondissement of Paris while he was responding to a call from officers securing a store. The perpetrator was immediately neutralized by police officers securing the store. Unwavering support,” the resigning Interior Minister, Gérald Darmanin, responded on X.
Near the scene of the attack, not far from the Champs-Élysées, a bomb disposal truck and at least four gendarmerie trucks and four police trucks were parked, an AFP journalist noted. Ribbons surround the entire area. The gendarmes parked trucks to block the view from passers-by.
“The police wanted to catch a pickpocket who did not give in, he took out a knife and injured a police officer in the arm,” the mayor of the 8th arrondissement, Jeanne d’Hauteserre, told AFP.
“The police officer defended his colleague and shot him in the stomach,” she added.
This attack comes eight days before the opening of the Olympic Games in the capital, during which an impressive security presence will be deployed.