One dead, others injured in attack near France’s Eiffel Tower
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STORY: A German tourist is dead and two other people were hurt on Saturday after an attack by a man armed with a knife and hammer near the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
French President Emmanuel Macron described the incident as a “terrorist attack.”
On Sunday, French anti-terrorism prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard said the suspect recorded a video beforehand that was released on social networks.
In it, he pledged allegiance to the Islamic State.
Ricard also told a news conference that the probe currently underway was opened for murder and attempted murder in connection with a terrorist organization.
Police quickly arrested the 26-year-old man who is a French national, after subduing him with a Taser stun gun, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told reporters on Saturday.
Darmanin said the suspect told police he was upset about the situation in Gaza, as well as Muslims “dying in Afghanistan and Palestine.”
This man who lives near the site of the attack told Reuters he feared future attacks.
"If we look at the news at the moment, you can't be completely surprised by that. Since those are random attacks, it's very complicated to prevent,” he said.
The suspect had previously been sentenced to four years in prison in 2016 for planning another attack and had been on the French security services' watch list, Darmanin said.
He added that the suspect was also known to have psychiatric disorders.
France has been on high alert since raising its security threshold in October, when a Chechen-origin man with a knife killed a teacher in a school in northern France.
