The Paris Olympics haven’t even started yet and the stabby-stabby marathon is off and running. As if, of course, anyone would normally notice another knife attack in “culturally diverse” Paris.
But at least one of the attacks, on a soldier, suggests something more ominous than the usual vibrant cultural diversity mass immigration brings to big cities.
A French soldier was stabbed outside a major rail station in Paris on Monday, and the attacker was arrested, officials said, while the city was under a high-security alert 11 days before the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympics.
A French military official said the soldier was hospitalised but is not in life-threatening condition and that the reason for the attack is being investigated. The official was not authorised to be publicly named.
Authorities don’t suspect terrorism as a motive at this stage, according to the national counterterrorism prosecutor’s office.
Right… the suspect, a Congolese, yelled “God is Great!” (now, where have we heard that before?), but… nothing to see, here. The suspect was apparently known to have a “probable schizophrenic illness that had been progressive for several years without medical care until now”. He had stabbed to death a 22-year-old in 2018.
All of which prompted French MEP Matthieu Valet to demand, “What was he doing on the loose?”
The soldier was among thousands of troops serving in the Sentinelle force for France’s domestic security, created to guard prominent French sites after a string of deadly Islamic extremist attacks in 2015. Soldiers in the Sentinelle force have been targeted in the past.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin posted on X that the soldier had been patrolling at the Gare de l’Est train station in eastern Paris, and that the assailant was detained.
Paris is deploying around 30,000 police officers each day for the Olympics, which run from July 26 to August 11, with a peak of 45,000 for the opening ceremony on the Seine river. About 18,000 military personnel are also helping ensure security.
They’re going to need them. The attack is just one of what they’re euphemistically calling, “a string of unrelated security incidents in the French capital this week”. Including a vehicular attack on a bar in the Menilmontant, which killed one and injured more.
A police officer was wounded in a knife attack in Paris on Thursday in the high-end Champs-Elysees neighbourhood and the assailant was immediately “neutralised”, authorities said, just days before the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics.
French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin posted on X that the attack happened in the 8th arrondissement of Paris while police were “responding to a call from officers securing a store”.
Speaking in front of the flagship Louis Vuitton store on the Champs-Elysees after the stabbing, Paris police chief Laurent Nunez said the assailant “pulled out a knife and threatened [the officers], tried to stab them multiple times and succeeded in stabbing”.
Who knows? Maybe they are entirely “unrelated security incidents”. After all, at this stage in the Downfall of the West, who’d notice the difference?
