2014 Dijon attack

2014 Dijon attack

Location of Côte-d’Or within France
Location Dijon, France
Date 21 December 2014
Weapons Car
Deaths 0
Non-fatal injuries
 11
Motive Radical Islamism

On 21 December 2014, a man in the French city of Dijon was arrested after running over 11 pedestrians in five areas of the city in the space of half an hour. Two were seriously injured.

The man was shouting the Islamic takbir Allahu Akbar ("God is Great"). The attack came a day after the 2014 Tours police station stabbing in which a man also shouting Allahu Akbar was shot by police in Joué-lès-Tours after he had wounded three of them with a knife.[1] The Dijon attack was followed the next day by the 2014 Nantes attack.

The attack was "apparently inspired by a video" circulated by ISIL calling on French Muslims to attack non-Muslims using vehicles.[2]

Suspect

The man arrested was reported to be aged around 40 at the time. He had been known to the police for minor offences committed over the course of 20 years, and had also spent time in a psychiatric hospital. French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve described him as "very unstable". The Interior Ministry believed that the man had acted alone, and anti-terrorism investigators opened an inquiry into the attack.[1]

The question of whether the attack should be understood as motivated by radical Islamism is disputed.[3]

Reactions

Manuel Valls, the Prime Minister of France, expressed his "solidarity" with the victims of the attack via Twitter.[1]

The government deployed 300 troops onto French streets after a third attack in as many days, when a driver in Nantes injured 10 and killed one at the city's Christmas market the night after the Dijon attack.[4]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 "France Dijon: Driver targets city pedestrians". BBC News. 21 December 2014. Retrieved 22 December 2014.
  2. ↑ Martin, Patrick (15 July 2016). "History of lone-wolf vehicle attacks suggests risk of emulation is very rea". Globe and Mail. Retrieved 15 July 2016.
  3. ↑ Leveille, David (22 December 2014). "France endures deadly attacks". Public Radio International. Reuters (credited in; not copy of). Retrieved 17 November 2015.
  4. ↑ "France to deploy soldiers after spate of attacks". BBC News. 23 December 2014. Retrieved 26 December 2014.
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