A knife-wielding attacker shouting “Allahu Akbar” beheaded a woman and killed two other people in a suspected terrorist incident at a church in the French city of Nice on Thursday, police and officials said.
Nice’s mayor, Christian Estrosi, who described the attack as terrorism, said on Twitter it had happened in or near the city’s Notre Dame church.
Estrosi said the attacker had repeatedly shouted the phrase “Allahu Akbar,” or God is greatest, even after he had been detained by police.
One of the people killed inside the church was believed to be the church warden, Estrosi said, adding that a woman had tried to escape from inside the church and had fled into a bar opposite the building. “The suspected knife attacker was shot by police while being detained, he is on his way to hospital, he is alive,” Estrosi told reporters.
“Enough is enough,” Estrosi said. “It’s time now for France to exonerate itself from the laws of peace in order to definitively wipe out Islamo-fascism from our territory.”
— Christian Estrosi (@cestrosi) October 29, 2020
Reuters journalists at the scene said police armed with automatic weapons had put up a security cordon around the church, which is on Nice’s Jean Medecin avenue, the city’s main shopping thoroughfare. Ambulances and fire service vehicles were also at the scene.
French President Emmanuel Macron is due to visit Nice, Estrosi said.
In Paris, lawmakers in the National Assembly observed a minute’s silence in solidarity with the victims.
Police said three people were confirmed to have died in the attack and several were injured. The French anti-terrorist prosecutor’s department said it had been asked to investigate.
A police source said a woman was decapitated. French politician Marine Le Pen also spoke of a decapitation having occurred in the attack.
Estrosi said the victims had been killed in a “horrible way.”
“The methods match, without doubt, those used against the brave teacher in Conflans Sainte Honorine, Samuel Paty,” he said, referring to a French teacher beheaded earlier this month in an attack in a suburb of Paris.
French assemblyman Meyer Habib reacted to the attack on Twitter, saying that, “even during a state of emergency in France because of the coronavirus, coward islamists are slaughtering and beheading women in a church in the French city of Nice, “they are corrupting France’s face. We’re at war!”
Alors que la est en état d’urgence sanitaire, ces lâches islamistes égorgent et décapitent une femme à #Nice dans #NotreDameCathedral ! Ils défigurent la ! Nous sommes en guerre! Ça suffit ! Notre réaction doit être disproportionnée avec ces sauvages !!— Meyer Habib (@Meyer_Habib) October 29, 2020
Following the horrific murder that took place in Nice, Miriam Feierberg, Mayor of the city of Netanya – Nice twin city – spoke with Nice Mayor Christian Estrosi, and expressed her pain and condolences on behalf of the city of Netanya over the stabbing attack that took place this morning.
In response, Estrosi told Fairberg, “We are one family.”
As a sign of sympathy, Fairberg instructed to hoist the French flags on the city bridges.
Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the Conference of European Rabbis, has also issued the statement following the terrifying attacks. “I am horrified by the barbaric attack in Nice this morning,” he said, adding that “Europe’s Jews pray for the victims and their families, and for the recovery of those injured.””Once again, murder has been committed in the name of religion and this appears to be the second similar incident in a matter of days. It is imperative that religious and communal figures make it clear that murder is abhorred by religion and such attacks stand in total contradiction to Islam’s explicit recognition of tolerance and compassion.”
The Vatican on Thursday condemned the attack as well saying terrorism and violence were never acceptable.
“Today’s attack sowed death in a place of love and consolation, the house of the Lord,” spokesman Matteo Bruni said in a statement.
“It is a moment of pain in a time of confusion. Terrorism and violence can never be accepted.” He said Pope Francis had been informed and was praying for the victims. The pope hoped the French people would “respond in a united way to evil with good.”
The attack comes while France is still reeling from the beheading earlier this month of middle school teacher Paty by a man of Chechen origin.
The attacker had said he wanted to punish Paty for showing pupils cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in a civics lesson.
Since Paty’s killing, French officials – backed by many ordinary citizens – have re-asserted the right to display the cartoons, and the images have been widely displayed at marches in solidarity with the killed teacher.
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