In a tense Tuesday morning incident at a central Paris metro station, French police shot and seriously wounded an unarmed woman who was making threats and shouting "Allahu Akbar" during the city's morning rush hour, Breitbart reported.
According to witnesses, the 38-year-old woman, who was fully veiled in an abaya, allegedly shouted menacing threats, including "you will all die," as passengers on a suburban train traveling from the eastern suburbs to Paris alerted the police.
Law enforcement agents isolated the woman at Bibliotheque Francois Mitterrand station in the capital's south bank. Police ordered her to sit and remain still, but she disobeyed, moving toward officers and not showing her hands, according to Paris Police Chief Laurent Nunez, The Times of Israel reported.
In response to the perceived threat to their safety, two police officers fired eight rounds at the woman after several warnings were ignored, causing a life-threatening injury to her abdomen, according to the prosecutor's office. No explosives or other weapons were found in her possession, the police confirmed.
The station was evacuated for safety and remained closed in the early afternoon.
Two separate investigations have been launched, one to examine the woman's actions and another to determine whether the use of firearms by the police was justified, prosecutors said.
Government spokesman Olivier Veran revealed that "at least three calls" from passengers to the rail operator SNCF prompted the police response.
"Police, evaluating the situation to be dangerous, opened fire," he told reporters. Footage from the officers' bodycams and from CCTV at the station would help establish the facts of the case precisely, he said.
Nunez disclosed that the woman, a French national, had a prior encounter with law enforcement in July 2021 when she threatened soldiers with a screwdriver and "made remarks with a religious content." She was briefly detained and subsequently committed to psychiatric care.
France has been on "attack alert" since Oct. 13, when an Islamist former pupil fatally stabbed a teacher in the northern city of Arras. The nation, with its significant Muslim and Jewish populations, has been on edge due to the Israel-Hamas conflict and the subsequent Israeli campaign in Gaza, which has raised concerns about potential repercussions.
In recent weeks, bomb alerts have prompted the evacuation of numerous airports, train stations, and tourist sites, including the Versailles Palace.
French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin announced on Monday that there had been 819 antisemitic acts in France since Oct. 7, resulting in 414 arrests. Following the Hamas attack, a spate of attacks and threats occurred in Europe, including in France, where a teacher was killed in an "Allahu Akbar" attack shortly after that.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this story.
Jim Thomas ✉
Jim Thomas is a writer based in Indiana. He holds a bachelor's degree in Political Science, a law degree from U.I.C. Law School, and has practiced law for more than 20 years.
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