Paris, June 10, (dpa/GNA) – French President Emmanuel Macron, has paid tribute to the rescue workers called to the knife attack in the French city of Annecy, in which six people were injured, including four young children.
“As president of the republic, I’m very proud of you,” Macron told assembled rescue and security workers in Annecy on Friday, one day after the attack in a park in the city in the French Alps.
“The image of France you have given … is that of the France we believe in,” the French president told the rescue workers.
Earlier, Macron and his wife Brigitte visited some of the small children, who were severely injured in the attack in hospital in the south-eastern city of Grenoble.
The perpetrator attacked and injured six people in a playground on Thursday morning, before security forces arrested him. The judiciary is investigating him for attempted murder. The investigators do not believe there was a terrorist motive for the attack.
Two of the children and one adult suffered life-threatening injuries.
The injured children, who are from France, Britain and the Netherlands and between 22 months and 3 years old, were brought to hospitals in Grenoble, some 100 kilometres from Annecy, and Geneva, some 50 kilometres to the north in Switzerland.
Macron said that what he had heard about the health of the injured children gave reason for hope.
“Attacking children is the most inhumane act possible,” Macron said. Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin spoke of the “worst day for the French” since he took office almost three years ago.
Government spokesman Olivier Véran said: “There is nothing that could ever justify or explain why children are targeted by a man.” He added: “We are all looking for answers.”
However, no further information has been made available since the public prosecutor’s office announced that the suspect’s custody had been extended. In the morning, the man had undergone a psychological evaluation, it said.
The authorities said earlier that the perpetrator is Syrian. He lived in Sweden for several years and came to France only a few months ago. The man was informed last Sunday that his asylum application in France had been rejected because he had already been granted asylum in Sweden, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said.
According to Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne, the man had not been known to European security authorities.
“I had the feeling that he was panicking and didn’t really know what to do,” 78-year-old Yusuf Meric, one of the people injured in the attack, told Le Parisien newspaper. “I have no idea what he wanted. I think he attacked me more by chance.”
GNA