PARIS, Oct 31 (Reuters) – Paris police shot and critically wounded a woman wearing a hijab who was behaving in a threatening manner and shouted “Allahu Akbar” and “You’re all going to die” in a metro station on Tuesday morning, Paris police chief Laurent Nunez said.
France is on its highest state of alert after the Oct. 13 murder of a schoolteacher in a suspected Islamist attack, which officials have linked to what they called a “Jihadist atmosphere” linked to the Israel-Gaza war.
The fully-veiled woman was shot at the Bibliotheque François-Mitterrand station. Commuters had reported her “uttering aggressive, Jihadist comments,” government spokesman Olivier Veran said earlier.
When police arrived, “they pulled the woman aside and first asked her to calm down but also to show her hands to show they presented no particular danger,” he added.
“What happened then was that law enforcement officers had no option but to open fire on this woman given the danger of the situation.”
[1/2]Police stand outside the Bibliotheque Francois Mitterand metro and regional train station, where officers shot and injured a woman wearing a hijab after she shouted “Allahu Akbar” and “You’re all going to die”, in Paris, France, October 31, 2023. REUTERS/Lucien Libert Acquire Licensing Rights
The fire service, which provided emergency care for the woman, said she was shot in the abdomen. She was transferred to a nearby hospital where she was getting treatment, police chief Nunez said, adding that her life was in danger.
Nunez said the woman’s identity was yet to be confirmed but that she could be the same person who in 2021 threatened urban patrols of the counter-terrorism Sentinelle operation and had been put in a psychiatric ward over mental health issues.
“This person refused to comply with summons and police fired their weapons,” Nunez said, adding the situation had been “extremely threatening.” The woman had threatened to blow herself up, French media including Le Parisien quoted the prosecutor’s office as saying.
The woman turned out not be in possession of explosives at the time she was shot, Nunez said.
The metro station, on the RER C line, was evacuated after the incident, police said.
Two investigations were opened, one against the woman and a second into the use of weapons by police.
Reporting by Tassilo Hummel, Dominique Vidalon, Michel Rose, Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by Ingrid Melander, John Stonestreet, Ed Osmond and Tomasz Janowski
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