A 27-year-old woman from Cannes was arrested this week outside the CanneSeries television festival after she yelled “Allah hu Akbar” and threatened to blow herself up.
The threat of terrorism took place at the Place de Gaulle in Cannes, within the vicinity of the Palais des Festivals where both the internationally renowned Cannes film festival and the TV festival take place, regional newspaper Nice-Matin reports.
More disturbingly, the 27-year-old was accompanied by her two children aged two and four years old while she was making threats to explode. Police were able to quickly arrest the woman who was later taken for a psychiatric evaluation and hospitalised on the advice of a clinical psychiatrist.
The two children were taken into protective custody with social services.
The incident was not the only terrorist threat in France this week as two men were arrested in Saint-Brieuc in Brittany after they both also shouted “Allah hu Akbar” and uttered death threats against an employee of France’s national railway company SNCF at a train station.
Several witnesses to the incident said the two men were shouting not only “Allah hu Akbar” but were also making disparaging remarks about French people and Roman Catholics.
After the men threatened the employee, the station was evacuated until 15 police officers arrived on the scene with anti-bomb equipment as they were concerned the men may have bombs in their suitcases. “We had to react very quickly. We did not know what their suitcases contained,” a local police officer said.
The two men were quickly arrested and taken to a psychiatric hospital. One of the men, a 23-year-old born in France was said to be homeless and known previously to police, the other a 32-year-old was also known to police.
The threats come only weeks after a radical Islamic terrorist entered a supermarket in Trebes, taking several hostages and killing four people including French policeman Lt-Col Arnaud Beltrame who traded himself for a hostage and died the following day of his wounds.
The man, identified as Moroccan migrant Redouane Lakdim, demanded the release of Bataclan terrorist Salah Abdeslam. He was killed by police after they stormed the supermarket.