A female police officer in France was stabbed to death in Rambouillet, a town south west of Paris, on Friday. The suspect has been identified as a Tunisian migrant. He was shot dead by her colleagues in the aftermath of the stabbing.
The victim suffered knife injuries to her neck and died shortly after the brutal attack. According to reports, the suspect did not have a police record. It is not yet clear whether the stabbing was a terrorist attack with the motivations of the attacker yet unclear.
Investigations into the matter are currently underway. Counter terrorism officials have reportedly reached the spot. The Interior Minister of France said that he was going there as well. The attacker was 36 years old.
As per reports, the attacker allegedly shouted ‘Allahu-akbar’ while carrying out the attack. The attacked was reportedly not known to the intelligence officials or the police. The 49-year old victim was reportedly the mother of two children. She had returned from her lunch break when the attacker lunged at her and slashed her throat.
‘The attack happened just after 2pm,’ an investigating source was quoted by the Daily Mail as saying. ‘The administrative officer was pounced on by the man, who slit her throat with a knife.’ ‘The assailant was shot dead by police officers soon afterwards, as efforts were made to save the victim,’ the source reportedly said.
Marine Le Pen, a prominent contender for the next presidential elections in France, said, ‘The same horrors keep happening, the same infinite sadness when thinking of the relatives and colleagues of this policewoman, the same profiles of people who are guilty of this barbarism, the same Islamist motives… We can’t take it anymore.’
France has been a victim of Islamist terror attacks since the beheading of Samuel Paty and Emmanuel Macron’s defense of freedom of expression.