A man was arrested in Cannes on Wednesday after threatening a trader in his premises with a knife, we learned from the Grasse public prosecutor’s office. The victim, manager of a garage carrying out technical inspections, first spotted the presence of this man with a prayer mat on his company premises.
“According to his statements, he asked him to leave and the man took out a pocket knife and shouted ‘Allah Akbar’. The victim then retreated into an office to call for help and when she came out, the individual was gone,” Grasse public prosecutor Damien Savarzeix explained to AFP.
Near a synagogue, but no “link” yet
According to a police source, the events occurred around 7 p.m. and the manager “reported (to the man) that this was not the place to pray.” The Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, then quickly declared on attack an individual. The man was taken into custody for “apology of terrorism and violence with weapons”. He is “a priori” homeless, according to Savarzeix.
The events occurred 200 meters from a synagogue but “it is too early to indicate whether there is any link,” insisted the prosecutor, who specified that the investigation has only just begun. The director of the municipal police of Cannes, questioned by 20 minutesconfirms for the moment that “there is no connection with the synagogue and any correlation would only be an extrapolation”.