A man armed with a knife killed three people inside a church in Nice, France on Thursday morning, prompting the government to raise its security alert status to the highest level and more than doubling the number of soldiers deployed in the country to protect schools and places of worship.
Reports suggest that the incident occurred at around 9 AM local time inside the Notre-Dame Basilica in the city center and that the assailant was wounded by the police and hospitalized shortly after. The city’s mayor Christian Estrosi said that the suspect cried “Allahu Akbar!” over and over, even after sustaining injuries, adding that “the meaning of his gesture left no doubt”. Authorities have not revealed the details of the attacker’s identity yet, though some outlets have suggested that the perpetrator was a 21-year old Tunisian migrant named Brahim Aoussaoui.
Speaking from the scene of the tragedy, French President Emmanuel Macron said that the country had been attacked “over our values, for our taste for freedom, for the ability on our soil to have freedom of belief”, and announced his decision to increase deployments from around 3,000 troops to 7,000. The attack comes amidst an increasing rift between Paris and the Islamic world, over the republication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad by the satirical newspaper, Charlie Hebdo. The cartooned portrayal of the Prophet is considered deeply offensive by Muslims, and the issue has renewed a debate about France’s freedom of speech laws. Muslims have held protests in several nations and called for a boycott of French goods, and France earlier this week warned its citizens abroad to take to extra security precautions as tensions rise.
Thursday’s assault was the third in two months in France and comes less than two weeks after the beheading of a French schoolteacher by an 18-year-old man of Chechen origin for showing his students the Charlie Hebdo caricatures during his class. The site of the incident in Nice is also less than a kilometer away from where another attacker in 2016, plowed a truck through a Bastille Day crowd, killing dozens of people. France’s anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation into Thursday’s incident.
“With the attack against (teacher) Samuel Paty, it was freedom of speech that was targeted. With this attack in Nice, it is freedom of religion,” Prime Minister Jean Castex said on Thursday. Two other instances of violence were also recorded on Thursday, one in Avignon, and another outside the French consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, though it is unclear if they were related to the attack in Nice.
Several groups and countries issued their condolences on Thursday, standing firmly with France. The French Council of the Muslim Faith condemned the attack and called on French Muslims to refrain from festivities this week marking the birth of Muhammad “as a sign of mourning and in solidarity with the victims and their loved ones.” The Turkish Foreign Ministry also issued a statement expressing “solidarity with the people of France against terror and violence”. The UK, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, India, and Pope Francis also denounced the assault.
Deadly Knife Attack in French Church Kills Three
Thursday’s assault is the third in two months in France and comes less than two weeks after the beheading of school teacher Samuel Paty.
October 30, 2020
SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES