STRASBOURG: One person died and two police officers were seriously injured in a knife attack in eastern France on Saturday that occurred during a demonstration, the local prosecutor said.

Three more officers were lightly wounded in the attack in the city of Mulhouse, carried out by a 37-year-old suspect who is on a terror prevention watchlist, prosecutor Nicolas Heitz said. The list, called FSPRT, compiles data from various authorities on individuals with the aim of preventing “terrorist” radicalisation.

It was launched in 2015 following deadly attacks on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo’s offices and on a Jewish supermarket. One of the seriously wounded police officers sustained an injury to the carotid artery, and the other to the thorax, Heitz said.

Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau was expected to travel to the scene of the attack later Saturday. Police established a security parameter after the attack that happened shortly before 4pm (1500 GMT) during a demonstration in support of Congo.

According to union sources the suspect, born in Algeria, has been under judicial supervision and house arrest, and under an expulsion order from France. “Horror has seized our city,” Mulhouse mayor Michele Lutz said on Facebook.

The incident was being investigated as a terror attack, she said, but “this must obviously still be confirmed by the judiciary”. France’s national anti-terror prosecutors unit said it was taking charge of the investigation.

Published in Dawn, February 23rd, 2025