French Prime Minister Jean Castex announced on Thursday that France raised its national security alert status to the highest possible level - "terror attack emergency", after Nice mass stabbing, took place this morning, and resulted in the death of three persons and the injury of several others.
Addressing the National Assembly, Castex said that the French government's response to the incident would be "firm, and immediate," praising how the security forces dealt with the "cowardly attack."
He also added that French President Emmanuel Macron will head the National Security Council meeting tomorrow morning to discuss the latest developments in the country, according to Russia Today (RT).
It is worth mentioning that, 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 and that police had detained the attacker, according to Reuters.
Estrosi said the attacker had shouted the phrase “Allahu Akbar”, or God is greatest.
One of the people killed inside the church was believed to be the churchwarden, Estrosi said. The attacker kept shouting “Allahu Akbar” even after he had been detained, Estrosi said. “The suspected knife attacker was shot by police while being detained, he is on his way to the 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.”
Nice’s mayor has also called for all churches and other religious centers in Nice to be placed under
surveillance or closed.
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”.
It is worth mentioning that, the attack comes less than two weeks after a teacher, Samuel Paty, was beheaded by a teenage radical Islamist.
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