CNN
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One person has died and several are wounded following a knife attack at a town market in eastern France, in what French authorities have described as an act of terror.
“Horror has just gripped our city. A man attacked passers-by at the covered canal market with a knife, several municipal police officers who intervened to neutralize him were also injured,” Mulhouse town mayor Michèle Lutz said in a statement Saturday on Facebook.
The suspect has been arrested and is currently in police custody, according to a press release by the office of France’s national anti-terror prosecutor.
The attacker had targeted several municipal police officers, shouting “Allahu Akbar,” as well as a passerby, the prosecutor’s office said. A civilian has died, and three officers are injured.
The 37-year-old suspect is from Algeria, the interior ministry said.
French President Emmanuel Macron expressed condolences to the victim’s family, adding that France’s national anti-terror prosecutor is looking into the case.
Macron also described the attack as “no doubt, an Islamic terrorist act, given the terrorist’s words.”
French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, appearing on news channel TF1, said that the suspect had previously been convicted for apology of terrorism – the crime of speaking positively of a terror act or group. He would have been deported to Algeria, but the country refused to accept him, Retailleau added.
“Once again, it is Islamist terrorism that has struck! And it is the migratory disorders that are at the origin of this act, Retailleau wrote on X. Retailleau, a member of the right-wing party “Les Républicains,” and is currently campaigning to be elected as party president.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
