Dec. 21, 2014: This photo provided by local newspaper Le Bien Public shows rescue workers tending at victims after a driver deliberately slammed into passersby in several spots in Dijon, central France. (AP Photo/Christian Guileminot; Le Bien Public)
French officials confirmed that 13 people were injured Sunday when a driver deliberately ran down crowds of pedestrians in the city of Dijon in eastern France. Witnesses told police that the driver was heard shouting “Allahu Akbar,” or “God is great!” in Arabic.
Sky News also reported that witnesses heard the driver shouting that he was doing it for “the children of Palestine” as he drove into people in various locations throughout the city. The ordeal lasted approximately 30 minutes, and two of the injuries were described as serious.
The Interior Ministry said the driver in Sunday’s car attack was a 40-year-old in a Renault Clio and is known by police for committing minor offenses in the 1990s. Eric Delzant, a local police official, told Europe 1 radio the driver, who was detained, suffered from psychological problems.
French officials Monday cautioned against jumping to conclusions about the attacker or his motives, an approach critics say has allowed Islamic radicalism to fester in French communities. France, a nation that has both the largest Jewish and Muslim communities in Europe, has seen a significant increase in anti-Semitic acts this year. During the 50-day war over the summer between the terror organization Hamas and the Israeli state, the country was the scene of some of the most anti-Semitic protests in the world.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said that the investigation in Dijon was just beginning, and that the government has stepped up security measures for police and other authorities.
The Sunday night rampage comes just one a day after a 20-year-old attacker took a knife to police in the town of Joue-les-Tours, which is located in central France. Counter-terrorist police are still investigating the attack that seriously injured two police officers, but police believe the now-deceased attacker was motivated by radical Islam.
Yet, Cazeneuve would only describe the station attack as “very unstable” during an interview with TF1.
While the Islamic State group and other terrorist organizations have repeatedly called for attacks against France, notably because of the French military’s participation in U.S.-led airstrikes in Iraq, other “lone wolf” attackers have a healthy anti-Semetic sentiment in the country to draw on already. Islamic extremists specifically said that those attacking the French government could use weapons easily at hand — such as cars or knives — to stage “lone wolf” attacks.
Despite the leader’s downplaying nature regarding radical Islamic in the past, Cazeneuve was actually doing to Dijon on Monday.
