Police opened fire Tuesday morning on a woman uttering threats of an attack at the Bibliothèque François Mitterrand RER station, in the 13th arrondissement of Paris.
The police opened fire on Tuesday, October 31, in the Bibliothèque François Mitterrand RER station, located in the 13th arrondissement of Paris, to subdue a 39-year-old woman. She was injured and was hospitalized. The RER station in Paris was quickly evacuated and remained closed for part of the day. This police intervention occurred in a context of tensions in France after the Arras attack and the war between Israel and Hamas. Franceinfo summarizes what we know about this affair.
The woman made death threats
During a press conference, the Paris police prefect, Laurent Nuñez, specified that this woman had been the subject of two reports around 7:20 a.m. by RER passengers in Val-de-Marne, “the first coming from a passenger in Choisy-le-Roi, the second coming from a call to the SNCF emergency number”. The Paris police chief also welcomed the “responsiveness of law enforcement”.
The woman had made threats such as “You’re all going to be there.” Or “God is great”. The Paris prosecutor’s office specified, on Tuesday evening, that the police were waiting for this woman on the RER C platform at the François Mitterrand Library station after the report. “The woman was then sitting next to two large bags, and smoke was emanating nearby”, relates the prosecution. The police therefore evacuated the platform to call in the bomb squad.
She was injured in the stomach and hospitalized
Laurent Nuñez also indicated that “this person got up and walked towards the police officers” despite police orders. “Despite their repeated requests, the woman did not answer any questions, walked towards the police, holding her invisible hands under her abaya”reports the prosecution.
The police then fired several times, eight times according to the prosecution. After checking, it turned out that the bags did not belong to this woman and that smoke was emanating “from a kettle which was initially not visible to the police”according to the prosecution.
According to several corroborating sources joined by franceinfo, the woman was injured in the stomach and was hospitalized. She was operated on and is still in intensive care, indicates the prosecution.
The woman was already known to the courts
The woman’s identity has been confirmed. She is 39 years old and lives in Val-de-Marne. She has already been arrested once in 2021 for having damaged a scooter with a screwdriver and for having threatened soldiers from Operation Sentinel with the same tool, according to the prosecution which specifies that “his police custody was then lifted due to his forced hospitalization”. Later, she explained that she was “in a psychotic state” at the time of the facts.
According to sources close to the matter, contacted by France Inter and franceinfo, her profile had already been mentioned during a meeting of a departmental evaluation group for Islamist radicalization (GED) but she was not on the S file.
Two open investigations
The prosecution specifies that two investigations have been opened, the first entrusted to the Paris judicial police for “apology, death threats and acts of intimidation against a depositary of public authority”, the other is entrusted to the IGPN for “intentional violence with a weapon by a person holding public authority”, on the use of a firearm.