A 32-year-old Malian man, who was living "legally in Italy" according to Paris police prefect Laurent Nuñez, attacked passers-by at the Gare de Lyon in Paris with a hammer and knife on the morning of Saturday, February 3. His police custody was interrupted on Saturday evening due to a psychiatric condition incompatible with the restraint measure, which may shed light on the reason behind the attack. His custody was resumed late on Sunday.
Despite the intervention of passers-by, security guards and railway police, who were able to restrain him, he injured three people – one of whom remained in hospital on Sunday with life-threatening injuries to the abdomen and head. An investigation into attempted murder has been opened by local police, although the national anti-terror prosecutor's office is keeping a close eye on developments in the case.
The man born in 1992 had benefited from "subsidiary protection" – a status issued when a person does not meet all the conditions for asylum – acquired in Italy in 2016. Living in the province of Turin, he was "undergoing treatment in a mental health center," according to Nuñez. He was carrying medication at the time of the attack.
On a TikTok account in the attacker's name, a man with a beard, shaved hair and glasses is seen making a series of hostile remarks about the West, France and the French, whom he accuses of having "plundered" his country during the colonial period. He also makes comments about President Emmanuel Macron, calling him a "criminal" and a "terrorist," who he says "chose the camp of Satan" and left Mali "at the mercy of jihadists and terrorists."
In his videos, he makes conspiratorial comments about Chad's role in Mali being "manipulated by France," and about France and other Western countries funding North African countries to prevent African immigration. He also expresses his support for Vladimir Putin's Russia and Russian people, who he says are "more beloved than the French." In a video published at the beginning of December, he says: "R.I.P. in three months, may Allah welcome me into his paradise," which could suggest that his actions were premeditated.
His case echoes that of 26-year-old French-Iranian man Armand Rajabpour-Miyandoab, who killed a German tourist and injured two others near the Eiffel Tower on December 2, 2023, and also suffered from a psychiatric illness. In January 2023, at the Gare du Nord station, another man randomly attacked passengers armed with a metal hook. A psychiatric report concluded that he had lost his powers of discernment at the time of the attack.