PARIS - An assailant killed a German tourist in a knife attack in the heart of Paris on Dec 2 and later told police that he could not bear the deaths of Muslims in Afghanistan and the occupied Palestinian territories, the French interior minister said.
Two other people were hurt after being struck with a hammer in the attack.
Here are some other attacks that have taken place in France in recent years:
Oct 13, 2023: One teacher was killed and another wounded in a knife attack at a high school in northern French town of Arras.
The suspected attacker was known to law enforcement agencies and was on a state “Fiche S” watchlist of people known as a potential security risk.
June 9, 2023: A Syrian national wounded four children and two pensioners in a knife attack in the Alpine town of Annecy.
May 22, 2023: An assailant fatally stabbed a nurse and wounded another hospital worker with a kitchen knife in Reims.
It was one of a spate of violent incidents recently that prompted President Emmanuel Macron to denounce what he called a process of “de-civilisation” in French society.
Jan 11, 2023: A man attacked and wounded six people at the Gare du Nord train station in Paris with a homemade weapon, leaving one with serious injuries, before being shot by off-duty police officers.
Dec 23, 2022: A gunman killed three people at a Kurdish cultural centre and nearby Kurdish cafe in central Paris, prompting violent street protests.
Oct 29, 2020: An attacker with a knife killed three people and wounded several others at a church in the southern city of Nice.
Oct 16, 2020: Middle school teacher Samuel Paty was knifed to death on the street of a Paris suburb after showing his teenage students a cartoon lampooning the Prophet Mohammad as part of a class on freedom of expression.
Sept 25, 2020: Two people were stabbed and wounded in Paris near the former offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine, where Islamist militants carried out a deadly attack in 2015. A man originally from Pakistan was arrested over the attack.
Jan 3, 2020: Police shot dead a man near Paris after he went on a rampage with a knife in a park, killing one person and wounding two more.
Oct 3, 2019: Mickael Harpon, 45, an IT specialist with security clearance to work in the Paris police headquarters, killed three police officers and one civilian employee before being shot dead by police. He had converted to Islam 10 years earlier.
March 23, 2018: A gunman killed three people in south-western France after holding up a car, firing on police and taking hostages in a supermarket. Security forces stormed the building and killed him.
July 26, 2016: Two attackers killed a priest and seriously wounded another hostage in a church in northern France before being shot dead by police. Francois Hollande, president at the time, said the hostage-takers had pledged allegiance to Islamic State.
July 14, 2016: A gunman drove a heavy truck into a crowd celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, killing 86 people and injuring scores more in an attack claimed by Islamic State. The attacker was identified as a Tunisian-born Frenchman.
June 14, 2016: A Frenchman of Moroccan origin stabbed a police commander to death outside his home in a Paris suburb and killed his partner, who also worked for the police. The attacker told police he was answering an appeal by Islamic State.
Nov 13, 2015: Paris was rocked by multiple gun and bomb attacks on entertainment sites around the city, in which 130 people were killed and 368 wounded. Islamic State said it was responsible. Two of the 10 known perpetrators were Belgian citizens and three were French.
Jan 7-9, 2015: Two Islamist militant gunmen broke into satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo’s offices on Jan 7 and killed 12 people. Another militant killed a policewoman the next day and took hostages at a supermarket on Jan 9, killing four before police shot him dead. REUTERS
