(AFP) Residents of a small French town laid cards and flowers Saturday at the spot where a “very kind” and “gentle” policewoman was seriously wounded in a knife attack the day before, the latest in a spate of attacks on officers.
The attacker, 39-year-old French citizen Ndiaga Dieye who was known to police and a diagnosed schizophrenic, stabbed the woman in La Chapelle-sur-Erdre near the western city of Nantes on Friday.
He then seized her firearm and fled, holding a young woman hostage for several hours before wounding two police officers during a shootout in which he was shot dead.
According to a source close to the matter, the hostage has said that Dieye never expressed “terrorist-type” claims, and a local court is still handling the investigation rather than transferring it to one specialised in terror acts.
