PARIS — Speaking in Nice at the site of a terrorist attack that cost the lives of three people Thursday morning, French President Emmanuel Macron said he will more than double the number of soldiers deployed in the country to protect against attacks, sending 7, to guard schools and religious sites in particular after a man armed with a knife killed three people at a church in Nice.
The killings put France on its highest level of alert and come at a time of extreme tension over the republication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad by the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. The French presidents tried to calm the French public in the wake of terrorist-related dramatic developments Thursday that jolted the nation.
The gunman had threatened passersby in Montfavet, near the southern French city of Avignon. In Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, state television reported that a Saudi man had been arrested in the Red Sea city of Jeddah after attacking and injuring a guard at the French consulate there. The French Embassy said he was in hospital after a knife attack though his life was not in danger. At around 9 am, a man armed with a knife entered the church and slit the throat of the sexton, beheaded an elderly woman, and badly wounded a third woman, according to a police source.
The sexton and the elderly woman died on the spot, the third woman managed to make it out of the church into a nearby cafe, where she died, Estrosi told reporters. None of the victims has so far been named. Ambulances and fire service vehicles were also at the scene. In the city, painful memories remain fresh of the jihadist attack during the Bastille Day fireworks on July 14, , when a man rammed his truck into a crowded promenade, killing 86 people. Just a few days later, two teenagers murdered an year-old priest as he conducted mass at his church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray in northern France, an attack later claimed by the Islamic State ISIS terrorist group.
A representative of the French Council for the Muslim Faith strongly condemned the attack. France is still reeling from the killing by a man of Chechen origin of schoolteacher Paty in a Paris suburb earlier this month.
