SAINT-PIERRE-D’OLERON (France), Nov 6 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A driver with no previous record of radicalisation “deliberately” ran over five people on Oleron island in western France Wednesday, seriously wounding two of them, a minister said, in a lower toll than previously reported.
The suspect was a 35-year-old fisherman from the Atlantic island who lived alone, local officials and a prosecutor said.
He ran over five people in 35 minutes, gravely wounding two, including a 22-year-old woman, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told a press briefing.
The man was “not known to intelligence services as having been radicalised”, he said, urging the public against jumping to conclusions, and adding there was no reason to involve any anti-terror prosecutors at this stage.
Police used a taser to arrest the suspect as he set fire to his car.
President Emmanuel Macron said he was “shocked by the attack in Oleron”, expressing condolences to the families of the victims on social media early Thursday.
“We have full confidence in the justice system to establish the truth and respond to this violence with the utmost firmness,” he wrote.
Prosecutor Arnaud Laraize said earlier that the suspect was an Oleron resident and initially reported 10 people injured on a road between Dolus d’Oleron and Saint-Pierre d’Oleron.
The prosecutor said the man — already known to the police for alleged involvement in petty crimes — cried “God is the greatest” in Arabic when arrested.
The expression is a key refrain in Islam, but also used by militants carrying out attacks.
The mayor of Saint-Pierre d’Oleron told journalists the man lived in a mobile home in his town and was “someone who lived alone, had a very isolated life”.
A lawmaker from the anti-immigration National Rally (RN) party said the woman who was gravely wounded was his aide and had been out for a morning jog.
RN vice-president Sebastien Chenu earlier warned in parliament of “the Islamist threat on our country”.
France has been rocked by a series of jihadist attacks in recent years.
In 2016, a Tunisian man rammed a 19-tonne truck into crowds in the southern city of Nice, killing 86 people. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack.
France will next week mark a decade since the attacks on the Bataclan concert hall and other locations in Paris, which killed 130 people and were also claimed by IS. — NNN-AGENCIES
