A 47-year-old woman was violently attacked late Monday morning while she was seated on a terrace on the Charles-de-Gaulle esplanade, in the center of Montpellier, a few meters from the Place de la Comédie. The victim was with her 38-year-old sister and her two-year-old niece when, for some undetermined reason, a man approached her and stabbed her in the side.
He then tried to hit the sister who only owed her salvation to the intervention of the other customers. Transported to a clinic in Saint-Jean-de-Védas, the victim would be out of danger, according to the prefecture.
The prefect calls for “zero tolerance”
The author of the stab wound was arrested in the process by a crew from the Bac (Anti-crime Brigade). Aged 26, it would be a man of Eritrean nationality, immediately placed in police custody. He would be in an irregular situation according to the prefect of Hérault Hugues Moutouh. “We will show no weakness vis-à-vis offenders, especially when they are in an irregular situation and have nothing to do on national territory. In accordance with the instructions of the Minister of the Interior, everything will be done so that the law applies in all its rigor and that at the end of his sentence, this foreigner is expelled”.
A judicial inquiry has been opened under the authority of the public prosecutor. The prefect of Hérault calls for “zero tolerance for foreigners who constitute threats to public security and tranquility”.