LAST UPDATE | 23 Apr 2021

FRENCH POLICE HAVE arrested three people after a female police employee was stabbed to death at her workplace southwest of Paris by a suspected Islamist extremist from Tunisia who was then shot dead by the security forces.

A judicial source said the three were part of the suspect’s “entourage”.

President Emmanuel Macron said France would never give in to “Islamist terrorism” after the attack in Rambouillet, a tranquil commuter town about 60 kilometres from Paris, which revived the trauma of a spate of deadly attacks last year.

France’s national anti-terrorism prosecutors said they had opened a terror investigation, also involving the DGSI domestic intelligence service, into the murder of a person holding public authority.

A source close to the inquiry told AFP the attacker shouted “Allahu Akbar” (God is Greatest) during the attack.

Chief anti-terror prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard, who spoke outside the station along with Prime Minister Jean Castex, confirmed that “comments made by the assailant” indicated a terror motive, without further details.

‘By her side’

The attack took place in the secure entrance area of the station at around 12.20pm
Irish time.

The 49-year-old woman, an administrative assistant and mother of two who was returning from a lunch break, was stabbed in the throat twice and died of her wounds shortly afterwards, the source said.

The attacker, 36, identified only as Jamel G., was fatally wounded when an officer opened fire on him.

He arrived in France illegally in 2009 but had since obtained residency papers, a police source said, adding that he was unknown to security services. He had just moved to Rambouillet.

About 30 police officers wearing balaclavas raided the suspect’s home in Rambouillet on this evening, AFP reporters at the scene said.

At the same time police searched the home of the person who sheltered Jamel G when he first arrived in France, sources close to the inquiry said.

Macron vowed on Twitter that “in our fight against Islamist terrorism, we will never give in,” identifying the murdered woman as Stephanie.

“The nation is by the side of her family, her colleagues and security forces,” he said.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, who also visited officers in Rambouillet, said security would be stepped up at stations nationwide.

Elle était policière. Stéphanie a été tuée dans son commissariat de Rambouillet, sur les terres déjà meurtries des Yvelines. La Nation est aux côtés de sa famille, de ses collègues et des forces de l’ordre. Du combat engagé contre le terrorisme islamiste, nous ne céderons rien.

— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) April 23, 2021

Several attacks over the last year have reignited concerns about the spread of radical Islam inside France as well as immigration.

In September, a Pakistani man wounded two people with a meat cleaver outside the former offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, which had printed cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

On 16 October, a young Chechen refugee beheaded teacher Samuel Paty who had showed
some of the caricatures to his pupils.

And on 29 October, three people were killed when a recently arrived Tunisian went on a
stabbing spree in a church in the Mediterranean city of Nice.

In the most severe recent attack against French police, three officers and one police
employee in Paris were stabbed to death in October 2019 by an IT specialist colleague who was himself then shot dead.

He was later found to have shown an interest in radical Islam.

These attacks came after the massacres carried out by Islamist extremists from 2015 that
began with the massacre of staff in the offices of Charlie Hebdo in January that year.

In France’s deadliest peacetime atrocity, 130 people were killed and 350 were wounded when suicide bombers and gunmen attacked the Stade de France stadium, bars and
restaurants in central Paris and the Bataclan concert hall in November 2015.

The next year a man rammed a truck into a Bastille Day crowd in Nice in 2016, killing 86
people.

Just a few weeks before, in June 2016, two police officers were stabbed to death at their
home outside Paris by a man claiming allegiance to the Islamic State group.

Macron’s government has introduced legislation to tackle radical Islamist activity in France, a bill that has stirred anger in some Muslim countries.