PARIS, Oct 31 (Reuters) – Paris police shot and seriously wounded a veiled woman who was behaving in a threatening manner and shouting “Allahu Akbar” and “You will all die” at a metro station on Tuesday morning. Paris Police Chief Laurent Nunez said.
France is on high alert after a teacher was killed on October 13 in a suspected Islamist attack that officials linked to what they described as a “jihadi atmosphere” linked to the war between Israel and Gaza.
The veiled woman was shot at the François Mitterrand Library station. Government spokesman Olivier Veran said earlier that passengers had reported her “aggressive and jihadist comments.”
He added that when the police arrived, “they pulled the woman aside and initially asked her to calm down but also to raise her hands to show that they did not pose any particular danger.”
“What happened next was that the law enforcement officers had no choice but to shoot this woman given the seriousness of the situation.”
[1/2]Police stand outside the François Mitterrand Library metro and train station, where officers shot and wounded a woman wearing a hijab after she shouted “Allahu Akbar” and “You will all die,” in Paris, France, October 31, 2023. REUTERS/Lucien Liebert Obtaining licensing rights
The fire service, which provided emergency care to the woman, said she had been shot in the abdomen. Police Chief Nunez said that she was taken to a nearby hospital where she is receiving treatment, adding that her life is in danger.
The woman’s identity has not yet been confirmed, but she could be the same person who in 2021 threatened urban patrols of an anti-terrorism operation and was placed in a psychiatric ward due to mental health issues, Nunez said.
“This person refused to obey the summons and the police fired their weapons,” Nunez said, adding that the situation was “very dangerous.” French media, including Le Parisien, quoted the public prosecutor’s office as saying that the woman had threatened to blow herself up.
Nunez said it was found that the woman did not have explosives at the time she was shot.
The metro station on RER Line C was evacuated after the incident, police said.
Two investigations were opened, one against the woman and the second into the police’s use of weapons.
(Reporting by Tassilo Hamel, Dominique Vidalon, Michel Rose and Sudeep Kar Gupta; Preparing by Mohammed for the Arabic Bulletin) Editing by Ingrid Melander, John Stonestreet, Ed Osmond and Thomas Janowski
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