Foreign Desk Report
Paris: Four people were injured, two seriously, in a knife attack in Paris on Friday outside the former offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, Prime Minister Jean Castex said.
Two of the victims were in critical condition, the Paris police department said, adding that two suspects were on the run. Police later said one suspect had been detained after the attack.
French media BFM TV and Le Figaro said earlier the suspect had been arrested on the steps of the Paris Bastille opera house. Schoolchildren were being kept inside in area around the attack, a city hall official said. “A serious event has taken place in Paris,” said Castex, who was addressing reporters at the time and cut short a visit to northern Paris to head instead to the crisis centre of the interior ministry. “Four people have been wounded and it seems that two are in serious condition,” he said.
He added the attack had taken place “in front of” the weekly’s former offices in the 11th district of central Paris. The magazine’s current address is kept secret for security reasons. The stabbing came as a trial was underway in the capital for alleged accomplices of the authors of the January 2015 attack on Charlie Hebdo. 12 people, including some of France’s most celebrated cartoonists, were killed in the attack by brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi.
