A 29-year-old Muslim radical on a French terror watchlist was fatally shot by police after stabbing a female police officer at a local police station, stealing her gun, and sparking an intensive manhunt ending in a hostage-taking and shoot-out.
The attack took place at a municipal police station in La Chapelle-sur-Erdre near Nantes and saw the 29-year-old enter the police station and claiming to have a problem with his car. He then quickly attacked a female police officer in her fifties with a knife, wounding her in the hand and legs.
Police officers on the scene attempted to intervene but the man threatened them with his knife as well as a firearm he had stolen from the female officer.
As the Islamic radical made efforts to leave the police station, another officer confronted him. The 29-year-old attempted to stab the officer but his bulletproof vest broke the attacker’s knife.
The radical briefly managed to get away in his car but crashed not long after. He tried to escape the scene on foot, hiding in a local apartment where he took a young woman hostage for over two and a half hours.
A total of 250 gendarmes, as well as the elite police tactical unit of the French National Gendarmerie, the GIGN, were deployed to locate the man who was found on the balcony of the apartment where he was hiding.
According to a local prosecutor, the man fired two shots at the gendarmes and the officers responded. After fleeing into a nearby field, the man fired three more times, injuring two officers, one in the knee and another in the elbow. The suspect was also shot in the abdomen and died shortly after.
The attacker is said to have been born in France and was on the reporting file for the prevention of terrorist radicalization (FSPRT) watchlist.
The suspected attacker also had a history of criminal activity, serving several prison terms, including one for kidnapping and armed robbery in 2013, but had never been convicted of terrorist offences.
So far, the anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office has not taken up the case.
The attack on the female officer comes just weeks after another female police officer was stabbed and killed in Rambouillet last month by a 36-year-old Tunisian migrant.