MARSEILLE: French police on Tuesday killed a man suspected of stabbing five people in the southern port city of Marseille, one of whom is in critical condition, a public prosecutor said.
The assailant, a Tunisian national with legal status in France, stabbed several people at a hotel that had just evicted him for non-payment, then attacked several others on a busy shopping street, prosecutor Nicolas Bessone told reporters.
“It would appear that he blindly and gratuitously attempted to strike people,” Bessone said.
The man first stabbed his roommate, leaving the victim in critical condition, the prosecutor said.
He then attacked the hotel’s manager, who fled into the street along with his son, who was stabbed “in the back.”
While both father and son were seriously hurt, but “their lives are not believed to be in danger,” Bessone said.
The man then continued what prosecutors called a “criminal rampage” on a crowded street, injuring at least two people in the face with a baton he carried along with two knives.
Witnesses said he shouted “religious and incoherent things,” a judicial source said, adding that there were no grounds for France’s anti-terror unit PNAT to get involved in the case.
A police patrol armed with tasers and automatic weapons in the area intervened and ordered him to drop his weapons, but when he refused they “neutralized” him, the prosecutor said.
A video published on TikTok by an anonymous user appears to show the man facing four plainclothes police for around 20 seconds before rushing toward them. They then opened fire. Seven shots can be heard on the video.
A resident told AFP that police arrived “very quickly” at the scene, and that the man had tried to attack them with a knife. One policeman shouted “stop, stop,” the witness said.
Another eyewitness told AFP the man was holding “two large butcher knives.”
The man died despite efforts to resuscitate him.
Prosecutors have opened an investigation into attempted murder and attempted murder of police officer.
Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau is to travel to Marseille on Tuesday evening, with a visit to the city’s police headquarters planned, his office said.
Police cordoned off the area, close to Marseille’s port, and put up a forensic tent in front of a fast-food restaurant.
The area is the site of several drug dealing spots, notorious for street consumption of cocaine as well as drug-related crime.
French police kill suspect after 5 hurt in Marseille knife attack
https://arab.news/ju6qj
French police kill suspect after 5 hurt in Marseille knife attack
- The assailant, a Tunisian national with legal status in France, stabbed several people at a hotel that had just evicted him for non-payment
- The victims’ conditions were not immediately known
Rubio says technical talks with Denmark, Greenland officials over Arctic security have begun
- US Secretary of State on Wednesday appeared eager to downplay Trump’s rift with Europe over Greenland
WASHINGTON: Technical talks between the US, Denmark and Greenland over hatching an Arctic security deal are now underway, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday.
The foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland agreed to create a working group aimed at addressing differences with the US during a Washington meeting earlier this month with Vice President JD Vance and Rubio.
The group was created after President Donald Trump’s repeated calls for the US to take over Greenland, a Danish territory, in the name of countering threats from Russia and China — calls that Greenland, Denmark and European allies forcefully rejected.
“It begins today and it will be a regular process,” Rubio said of the working group, as he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “We’re going to try to do it in a way that isn’t like a media circus every time these conversations happen, because we think that creates more flexibility on both sides to arrive at a positive outcome.”
The Danish Foreign Ministry said Wednesday’s talks focused on “how we can address US concerns about security in the Arctic while respecting the red lines of the Kingdom.” Red lines refers to the sovereignty of Greenland.
Trump’s renewed threats in recent weeks to annex Greenland, which is a semiautonomous territory of a NATO ally, has roiled US-European relations.
Trump this month announced he would slap new tariffs on Denmark and seven other European countries that opposed his takeover calls, only to abruptly drop his threats after a “framework” for a deal over access to the mineral-rich island was reached, with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte’s help. Few details of the agreement have emerged.
After stiff pushback from European allies to his Greenland rhetoric, Trump also announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week that he would take off the table the possibility of using American military force to acquire Greenland.
The president backed off his tariff threats and softened his language after Wall Street suffered its biggest losses in months over concerns that Trump’s Greenland ambitions could spur a trade war and fundamentally rupture NATO, a 32-member transatlantic military alliance that’s been a linchpin of post-World War II security.
Rubio on Wednesday appeared eager to downplay Trump’s rift with Europe over Greenland.
“We’ve got a little bit of work to do, but I think we’re going to wind up in a good place, and I think you’ll hear the same from our colleagues in Europe very shortly,” Rubio said.
Rubio during Wednesday’s hearing also had a pointed exchange with Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, about Trump repeatedly referring to Greenland as Iceland while at Davos.
“Yeah, he meant to say Greenland, but I think we’re all familiar with presidents that have verbal stumbles,” Rubio said in responding to Kaine’s questions about Trump’s flub — taking a veiled dig at former President Joe Biden. “We’ve had presidents like that before. Some made a lot more than this one.”
