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French town pays tribute to those who chased off knife attacker / Photo: © AFP
French town pays tribute to those who chased off knife attacker
Hundreds of residents of the French town of Annecy gathered Sunday to honour the people who rushed to stop a man accused of stabbing six people, including four toddlers, at a playground last week.
Under the radiant sun, in the same park where the tragedy unfolded Thursday, people laid flowers, while on a nearby bench someone had written the names of the child victims inside a heart.
"It's a strong sign of unity and solidarity that we're all here together," said the city's mayor Francois Astorg.
"We are together. We will face this together," he added, while also paying tribute to those who responded to the attack "with courage and professionalism."
They include two municipal agents who tried to stop the attacker with a shovel, a young man renting out pedal boats and a maths teacher who both tried to step in, and a tourist who chased the attacker. A childminder also rushed in to rescue two wounded children.
On Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron met the civilians being hailed as heroes for chasing the alleged attacker from the playground where the stabbings took place.
On Saturday, public prosecutor Line Bonnet-Mathis paid tribute to those who, "by their action, were able to preserve human lives". She also acknowledged the work of the emergency services.
She also announced that the Syrian refugee detained over the stabbings, named as Abdalmasih H, had been charged with "attempted murder".
The attack left the normally peaceful lakeside town in shock. Hundreds of people have laid flowers, soft toys and heart-shaped balloons at the site of the attack.
Abdalmasih H. "did not wish to speak" during his 48 hours in police custody nor before the magistrates leading the investigation, Bonnet-Mathis told reporters on Saturday.
After two psychiatric evaluations, he was deemed "compatible with police custody", and doctors had determined he did not suffer from delusions.
However, she added, it was too early to diagnose or rule out other psychological pathologies.
He has been placed in solitary confinement at the Aiton penitentiary, a source close to the case told AFP.
- Victims out of danger -
Bonnet-Mathis also said that the victims of the attack were no longer in a life-threatening condition.
The children, aged between 22 months and three years, were initially hospitalised in a serious condition, while one adult was also seriously wounded and another lightly hurt.
Recently divorced from a Swedish national and in his early 30s, the suspect had previously lived for 10 years in Sweden where he was granted refugee status in April, security sources and his ex-wife told AFP.
He left the country because he had been unable to get Swedish nationality, she added.
French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told broadcaster TF1 that "for reasons not well explained he had also sought asylum in Switzerland, Italy and France".
France has been the target of a series of Islamist attacks over the last decade.
According to video taken by a bystander however, the alleged attacker could be heard shouting "in the name of Jesus Christ" during the attack.
While prosecutors say they have not identified a terror motive in the attack, the incident has intensified tensions in France over immigration, with right-wing politicians seizing on the suspect's foreign origins.
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H. Garcia--JDB
