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Paris (AFP) – Seven people, including two British tourists, were wounded Sunday night in Paris by a knife-wielding, terrifying attack that passers-by tried to stop by throwing balls of petanque at the same time. assailant.
Four of the victims were in critical condition, the police said, after the man who brandished a large blade and an iron bar broke loose near a canal northeast of the capital.
The suspect is believed to be an Afghan national and was arrested, a source close to the investigation said, adding that he had targeted "foreigners" but that "nothing at this stage shows signs of a terrorist nature".
Chaos erupted on the shores of the La Villette Basin, an area popular with locals and visitors who frequent cafes, cinemas and other cultural sites along its shores, just after 23:00 (21:00 GMT).
Witness Youssef Najah, 28, said he was walking beside the canal when he saw a man running and holding a knife about 25 to 30 cm long.
"There were about 20 people chasing him, and they started throwing him petanque balls," said Najah, referring to popular sport in France, also known as boules.
"Four or five bullets hit him in the head, but they could not stop him," he added.
According to the same witness, the attacker then plunged into an alley where the man "tried to hide behind two British tourists. We told them, "Be careful, he has a knife." But they did not react ".
The two men were then attacked, he said.
A security guard from one of the two cinemas on either side of the water said he had seen the attacker run away from two men trying to arrest him.
"He had an iron bar in his hand that he threw against the men who chased him, then he pulled out a knife," he told AFP.
The British Foreign Ministry said it was aware of reports of the attack and was "urgently investigating the incident" in cooperation with the French authorities, the British media reported.
– High alert –
A judicial investigation was opened for attempted murder, according to a judicial source.
This is the latest of several knife attacks that France has seen in recent months, terrorism being excluded in most cases.
On 23 August, a man stabbed his mother and sister and seriously injured a person in a town near Paris before being shot dead by police.
The motive for the violence remained uncertain despite the Islamic State (IS) claim that it was an attack by one of its fighters responding to the organization's propaganda. terrorist.
Authorities said the 36-year-old was suffering from severe mental health problems and had been on a terrorism watch list since 2016.
This attack occurred a few days after the arrest of an Afghan asylum seeker in Périgueux for a ransacking with a knife in which four people were injured, one seriously.
Police said the investigators "very quickly" rejected a terrorist cell after the August 13 incident.
And on June 17, two people were injured in another southern city when a woman shouting "Allahu akbar" (God's greatest) attacked them in a supermarket with a carving knife.
France has been on alert following a series of jihadist attacks in recent years, often by people who have radicalized themselves or claim to have acted on behalf of the IS group.
More than 240 people have been killed by Islamist extremists since the massacre of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris in January 2015.
kap-grd-nal-rfo / epe / dar / hh / kafjta
