A knife attack in the French Alpine town of Annecy injured four children and two adults on Thursday that has left France and the rest of the world in shock.
In a horrific event that occurred on Thursday, four children and two adults were stabbed in French town of Annecy in a brutal knife attack, leaving the victims in critical condition. The incident occurred at a playground near the renowned Lake Annecy after a man armed with a knife entered the ground in the morning. The area attracts several tourists for its tranquility and scenic views. It is also frequented by locals.
The man walked past a group of adults and targeted young children, including a child in a pushchair. Among those attacked were a child aged 22 months, two children aged two years, and a three-years old child. Additionally, a 70-year-old man was injured by the attacker, and then got caught in the police’s crossfire.
The victims were in critical condition due to the stabbings, and were rushed to hospitals across the French Alps as well as Geneva on the other side of the Swiss border. Dozens of other young children were undergoing counselling for the stress of seeing the stabbings at the playground. High school students who witnessed the attack were also being treated for shock.
The attacker was very soon pursued by police, but not before he stabbed two adults in a bid to escape. The man was identified as a Syrian refuge who had been given asylum in Sweden. The man had sought asylum in France which was not processed since he already had refugee status in Sweden. He was legally permitted to travel to France on account of his EU refugee status.
Reactions by Government Officials
French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne called the incident “savage” and that the entire country had been shaken by this heinous, indescribable act. She stated that the attacker was an “isolated individual,” and the case was not being treated as a terrorist attack. According to Borne, French authorities had contacted international security and intelligence agencies, and the man was unknown to any French, European, or foreign security service. The attacker did not have any criminal record and no evident psychiatric history, according to the PM.
French President Emmanuel Macron branded the incident as that of “absolute cowardice.” He echoed Borne’s sentiment of the nation being in shock and shared his condolences for the families of the victims.
Opposition Slams the Immigration Policies
Opposition parties in France, especially politicians from the right and the far-right slammed the country’s immigration policies. They called for a closer scrutiny of the same, which also asking for a revision of France’s asylum policy. This criticism emerged from the refuge identity of the perpetrator, the Syrian refugee. Éric Ciotti, head of right-wing Republicans party stated that the profile of this attacker is recurrent with such attacks. He called for reaching swift conclusions “without being naïve.”
The single-largest opposition party of France, far-right National Rally party spearheaded by Marine La-Pen, also implicitly blamed the nation’s immigration policies for the brutal attack. The party’s head Jordan Bardella tweeted how France’s immigration policies and Europe’s rules need to be reviewed.
Frequent Attacks in France
Such knife attacks and mass killings of various natures are quite frequent in the European nation. In October 2020, three people were stabbed to death at a Church in Nice in what President Macron had termed as an “Islamist terror attack.” The incident was preceded by the beheading of a school teacher who had showed cartoon of Prophet Mohammed. Furthermore, 86 people were run over to death, again in Nice in 2016.
