The suspect was known for murder

Less than two weeks before the opening of the Paris Olympic Games, a soldier from Operation Sentinelle was stabbed at Gare de l’Est on Monday evening.

Shortly before 10 p.m., the suspect, a 40-year-old man born in the Democratic Republic of Congo and of French nationality, stabbed “between the shoulder blades” a soldier who was patrolling the station.

The man was naturalized French in 2006.

The suspect was quickly arrested by the other soldiers present and the soldier injured in the shoulder was evacuated conscious to the hospital. His life is not in danger.

Known for a murder committed in 2018

According to initial evidence, he “said he was a Christian and shouted ‘God is great’ in French” during the attack, a police source said. He said he acted “because the military is killing people in his country,” the source added.

This man is already known to the courts for a murder committed in 2018, a case for which he was interned in a psychiatric hospital.

At the time, he fatally stabbed a 22-year-old man at the Châtelet-les-Halles station. He was declared not criminally responsible in this case due to an abolition of discernment and was therefore not tried.

“Thoughts for the soldier injured this evening at Gare de l’Est, deployed as part of Operation Sentinelle,” the Minister of the Armed Forces, Sébastien Lecornu, also wrote on X.

“Support and recognition for our armed forces, which are participating more than ever in ensuring the security of the French,” he added.

Operation Sentinelle was launched in 2015 after the attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris. Patrols by heavily armed soldiers have since become part of the daily life of Parisians.