Isis terror group have frequently called on their followers to attack soldiers and police in France, who they see as a legitimate target because they represent the French state.
Before Thursday’s attack on a police officer on the Champs Elysees, France’s forces of security and law and order have been targeted several times before.
Recently there was the Louvre machete attack on a soldier outside a shopping centre next to the famous art gallery, and an attempted attack on soldiers at Orly airport outside of Paris, as well as numerous other violent incidents in recent years.
Tarek Belgacem tries to attack a police station in Paris with a meat cleaver and a device
that turns out to be a fake bomb. Photo: AFP
June 14th, 2016: The murder of a policeman and his partner in Magnanville, a town to the west of Paris added to the list of members of the French security forces who have been targeted by Islamist militants.
Tarek Belgacem tries to attack a police station in Paris with a meat cleaver and a device that turns out to be a fake bomb. Photo: AFP
The attacker, identified as Larossi Abballa, claimed allegiance to the Islamic State group after stabbingJean-Baptiste Savaing to death.
He then took the victim’s partner Jessica and their three-year-old son hostage in the couple’s home, with the woman found dead after a police raid. The child was not hurt.
January 7th, 2016: A year to the day after the Charlie Hebdo attack, a man identified as Tarek Belgacem tries to attack a police station in Paris with a meat cleaver and a device that turns out to be a fake bomb.
He is shot dead by police, who find a pledge of allegiance to the Islamic State group on his body.
February 3rd, 2015: Moussa Coulibaly, unrelated to Amedy Coulibaly, uses a knife to attack three soldiers guarding a Jewish community centre in Nice, southern France.
January 8th, 2015: Islamist Amedy Coulibaly shoots dead a policewoman in Montrouge, south of Paris, before taking hostages the next day at a kosher supermarket, where he kills four more people. He later dies during a police assault.
Coulibaly was linked to Cherif and Said Kouachi, who attacked the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo on January 7, 2015 during which 12 people, including two policemen, are killed.
December 20th, 2014: Bertrand Nzohabonayo is shot dead as he cries “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest) as he attacks police with a knife in Joue-les-Tours, in central France.
May 25th, 2013: A soldier patrolling the business district of La Defense, west of Paris is injured by Alexandre Dhaussy, 22, a convert to Islam.
Dhaussy is arrested a few days later and claims his motive was religious. A court decides that he suffers from psychiatric problems.
March 11th and 15th, 2012: Self-proclaimed jihadist Mohamed Merah kills three French soldiers, two of whom are Muslim, in Toulouse and Montauban in southern France.
He later attacks a Jewish school on March 19, 2012, where he kills three children and a teacher. Merah is shot dead on March 22 by police.
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Source:thelocal.fr