Paris, France — A French off-duty policeman on Monday detained a man after he allegedly attacked and wounded three women in Paris with two kitchen knives, a minister and police said.
The identity of the suspect and his motive were not immediately clear. Parisian authorities were still determining whether to launch a terrorism investigation into the attack.
Three women aged 19, 24 and 36 were taken to the hospital after the assault at around 11:30 a.m. (5:30 a.m. ET) in the Porte de Clichy area in the north of the capital, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez and Paris police said.
Two were seriously wounded and in critical condition, Nunez said. One was hit in the lower back, the other in the abdomen.
The mayor of the northwest 17th district where the stabbings occurred, Geoffroy Boulard, said on X that one of the three was pregnant.
Nunez said the suspect was “apprehended by an off-duty police officer.”
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Waitress Kheira Dellabed, 54, said she was washing dishes at the time of the stabbing.
“We saw a man walk by with two knives and stab three people,” she said.
“Then a young man with a small suitcase hit him with his bag, knocking him to the ground,” she added. A waiter from a nearby restaurant then put a chair “on him.”
As the suspect was lying on the ground Monday, held by the off-duty officer and others, he could be heard in an amateur video clip of the incident saying: “It is Allah who commanded me.”
Nunez referred only to him making “incoherent statements,” and he warned against jumping to any conclusions regarding a motive.
“We must obviously remain very cautious regarding the motives behind this extremely violent act,” Nunez told reporters. “I firmly condemn this act, and we are told that the individual is making incoherent statements.”
The attack came after a man known to German authorities as an Islamic extremist rammed a rented minivan into a Pride parade in Berlin, killing one woman and wounding 29.
Another part of the video shows the same man lying on the ground immobilized by bystanders, while the two knives are lying nearby on a pedestrian crossing.