No trace of terror after knife attack in Paris train station

The attacker was arrested after the attack on Saturday morning in the busy Gare de Lyon train station. As it became clear on Sunday, there was probably no terrorist background. Six months before the start of the Olympic Games, the attack once again raises questions about security in the city.

• Also read: Knife attack at Paris train station: search for motive

As Paris police prefect Laurent Nuñez said, the attacker attacked travelers with a knife and a hammer. Railway security personnel overpowered him. There is no evidence of a terrorist act, emphasized Nuñez. The attacker was apparently mentally ill and appropriate medication was found on him. It is a 32-year-old who was regularly staying in Italy. As the newspaper “Le Parisien” reported, the man had been undergoing treatment for seven years and had also been admitted to a clinic in the meantime.

The perpetrator traveled from Italy by train

As “Le Parisien” reported on Sunday with reference to the police, the attacker came to France by train from Italy on February 1st specifically to “commit his crime,” as he is said to have told investigators. During his interrogation, he is said to have accused France of its colonial past and its presence in Mali, the West African country from which he comes. He is now in a psychiatric hospital.

There have already been several attacks in Paris train stations, but they had no terrorist background. At the end of October, police officers shot a woman in an S-Bahn station who had threatened to explode. About a year ago, officials at the Gare du Nord incapacitated an attacker who had injured six people with a knife.

Fear of terrorist attacks is omnipresent

In France and especially in Paris, fear of terrorist attacks and other attacks is omnipresent. After the fatal knife attack by a young Islamist on a teacher in northern France in October, the highest terror alert level in the country was imposed. However, the warning level was lowered again in mid-January.

Security questions regarding the Olympic Games were particularly raised after an Islamist killed a German and injured two other people near the Eiffel Tower in early December.

The opening ceremony of the games is planned for the summer not far from the site of the attack, with huge crowds of spectators expected along the Seine in the open air. Around 300,000 people could watch the ceremony – fewer than originally planned.

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