RAMBOUILLET: French investigators were on Saturday questioning three people linked to a Tunisian man who stabbed a police employee to death near Paris in a suspected Islamist attack.

The murder at a police station in Rambouillet, a commuter town about 60 kilometres from Paris, revived the trauma of a spate of deadly attacks in recent years.

The victim was a 49-year-old woman named as Stephanie M., a police administrative assistant and mother-of-two, who was stabbed twice in the throat at the entrance of the station.

Her alleged 36-year-old attacker named as Jamel Gorchene, who had not been known to police or intelligence services, was shot and killed by an officer at the scene.

President Emmanuel Macron, who was out of the country on a visit to Chad at the time, tweeted that France would never give in to “Islamist terrorism”.

On Saturday, he visited the victim’s husband after meeting with the police divisional commander in Rambouillet to express his support, the French presidency said.

The latest violence targeting police is likely to focus attention further on the danger of Islamic extremism in France and wider concerns about security a year ahead of a presidential election.

Prime Minister Jean Castex said he would hold a meeting on Saturday in Paris with ministers and security officials after the killing. National anti-terrorism prosecutors have opened a terror investigation. Chief anti-terror prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard confirmed “comments made by the assailant” indicated a terror motive and said the attack may have been premeditated. The suspect’s father and two other people said to have hosted him were taken into custody on Friday, and questioning continued on Saturday as police delve into his background, contacts and possible motives.

The assailant had arrived in France illegally in 2009 but had since obtained residency papers, a police source said. He had just moved to Rambouillet and worked as a delivery driver.

Relatives in Tunisia described him as depressive and not devout while expressing shock and disbelief.

Gorchene was from M’saken, the same hometown as Tunisian Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, who carried out a deadly attack in France in July 2016.

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen immediately questioned why the attacker had been able to settle in the country, and hit back at recent criticism about police brutality in France.

“We need to get back to reason: supporting our police, expelling illegal immigrants and eradicating Islamism,” she wrote on Twitter. Polls show her running close to Macron in next year’s election, though experts warn that surveys conducted so far ahead and during a pandemic should be interpreted with caution.

About 30 police officers wearing balaclavas raided the suspect’s home in Rambouillet on Friday, reporters said.

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

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

France has been repeatedly targeted by Islamist attackers since 2015, with a series of incidents in the last year keeping terrorism and security as a leading concern.

Macron’s government has introduced legislation to tackle religious extremism, which would make it easier for the government to close places of worship and track foreign funding of mosques.

Published in Dawn, April 25th, 2021