France urges caution after attacks
Print Edition
PRESIDENT Francois Hollande yesterday urged the French not to panic as authorities probed the motives and profiles of two men who committed brutal weekend attacks while reportedly shouting “Allahu Akbar.”
The country is reeling from the violence, which saw a man killed on Saturday when he assaulted police officers in the central town of Joue-les-Tours and a driver plough into pedestrians on Sunday in Dijon in the east, leaving 13 injured in a scene one witness described as “apocalyptic.”
Both men reportedly shouted “Allahu Akbar” (“God is greater”) prompting speculation the assaults were motivated by radical Islam. But Hollande told a weekly cabinet meeting that people should not panic, calling on authorities to exercise “utmost vigilance.”
In Saturday’s attack, Bertrand Nzohabonayo, a French convert to Islam who was born in Burundi, was shot dead after entering a police station in Joue-les-Tours armed with a knife, seriously wounding two officers — slashing one in the face — and hurting another. The assault prompted the government to step up security at police and fire stations nationwide.
Nzohabonayo had previously committed petty offences but was not on a domestic intelligence watch-list although his brother Brice is known for his radical views and once pondered going to Syria.
Brice was arrested in Burundi soon after. “He has been detained in our premises and he is being questioned,” intelligence spokesman Telesphore Bigirimana said.
The anti-terror branch of the Paris prosecutor’s office quickly took over a probe into the attack amid heightened vigilance over potential “lone wolf” attacks by individuals heeding calls for violence by the Islamic State jihadist group.
In the second attack, the driver targeted groups of passersby at five different locations in Dijon in a rampage that lasted around half an hour, before being arrested. He suffered from severe psychiatric problems, a prosecutor said yesterday, insisting the incident that left 13 hurt was “not a terrorist act.”
“It is absolutely not a terrorist act,” Marie-Christine Tarare told reporters in the eastern town of Dijon, adding that the man had a “long-lasting and severe psychological disorder.”
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