French Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne on Sunday criticized the political utility of the stabbing of four children and two adults in Annecy by a Syrian refugee, prompting some on the right and the far right to call harder for more border controls and immigration.
“Wanting to learn lessons when the investigation has not yet been completed does not seem to me to be a good method,” said Borne in an interview with France 3, insisting that there are still many elements to be clarified.
The four child victims of the attack, aged between 22 months and three years, and one of the two injured adults, all of whom were stabbed, remain in hospital. But since Saturday it has become known that none of them are in danger of dying.
The incident took place on Thursday morning in a park on the edge of Lake Annecy in the French Alps.
The assailant, Abdemasih H., a 31-year-old Syrian Christian with refugee status in Sweden, who had been homeless in France since October 2022, attacked them with a knife for reasons yet to be determined.
Until now, investigators found no terrorist motive, nor could they determine whether it was a mental disorder. Witnesses heard him making references to his wife and daughter, who live in Sweden, and to Jesus Christ during the attack.
In any case, leaders of the extreme right, such as Marine Le Pen and Éric Zemmour, but also of the traditional right, such as Éric Ciotti, have from day one linked what happened to a migration policy in France and the European Union. was, in his opinion, disjointed and lax.
The prime minister said on Sunday she was aware of the French’s concerns about immigration, underlining that they have not waited “for this drama to unfold to take action”.
He recalled that his administration is in talks with the traditional right-wing party, the Republicans, about a bill they plan to introduce in July to increase effectiveness and speed in the expulsion of irregular migrants and those whose asylum applications are rejected.
The author of the attacks entered prison on Saturday and is being held in a cell isolated from the other inmates after being charged with attempted murder, which can carry a life sentence, and rebellion with a weapon.
The mayor of Annecy, environmental activist François Astorg, this morning, at a funeral ceremony in memory of the victims in the same park where the attack took place, appealed to people “not to give in to the temptation of hatred”.
Source: DN
