Four young children who were stabbed to death in a park in Annecy, in southeastern France, are now in stable condition, authorities told the BBC.
The children, between the ages of one and three, are being treated at the hospital.
Police overpowered and arrested the man he stabbed after he entered a playground to carry out the attack.
A three-year-old British boy is among the injured, another is Dutch. Two adults were also injured, one of them in critical condition.
Police have confirmed that the suspect is a 31-year-old Syrian who had refugee status in Sweden.
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Regional MP Antoine Armand described the attack as “abominable” and said authorities were investigating but knew “very little”.
Video footage of the attack uploaded to social media, too graphic for broadcast, shows a small playground, with normal life. Children run around and their parents and caregivers are there.
Then a man comes in with a knife, and pretty soon there’s screaming. He is clearly looking for children to attack, and he attacks one in a stroller.
French Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne and Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin attended the scene of the attack.
Borne told a news conference that the attacker “has no criminal or psychiatric record.”
Annecy prosecutor Line Bonnet-Mathis told reporters the young victims were between 22 months and three years old.
“There doesn’t appear to be any kind of terrorist motivation,” he said.
Police say the suspect has refugee status in Sweden and recently arrived in France, leaving behind a wife and three-year-old daughter. In a failed asylum application last year for refugee status in France, he said he was a Syrian Christian.
During the incident, the attacker invoked the name of Jesus Christ.
A woman identified as his ex-wife told BFM TV that her former partner was a Christian.
“He doesn’t call me for four months. (Our relationship) stopped because we lived in Sweden and he didn’t want to live in Sweden anymore,” she said, adding that she had not shown a violent streak before.
In recent years, France has grown accustomed to knife attacks, often carried out by lonely young men with a record of petty crime and some Islamist connection. It is clear that this attack is of another nature.
So far, most politicians are being careful not to jump to conclusions, but the attack will inevitably fuel the immigration debate.
The tributes come as the questions grow
Tonight in Annecy, the darkening sky casts shadows on the white rose tributes on the playground wall. A child’s drawing, covered with hearts, flutters in the wind. A note, addressed to the four children who were stabbed here, reads: “the horror passes, the love remains.”
And as the flowers began to appear here this afternoon, the children began to return as well. In the early afternoon, the playground was once again abuzz with their enthusiasm, the rows of TV cameras lined up nearby ignored.
But those who witnessed the attack here and the dramatic intervention of the emergency services told us they were still in shock and crying.
This attack on young children at a popular tourist spot has rocked France: the horror is felt far beyond this city, the reason for which remains a mystery.
As here in Annecy, tributes and questions grow.
White roses are seen in the children’s playground.
The suspect is said to have attacked children, some in strollers, while they were visiting the park, before fleeing the scene and stabbing a nearby elderly man.
The police intervened and the perpetrator was shot in the legs.
The French National Assembly observed a minute’s silence and roads are blocked around the scene of the attack.
President Emmanuel Macron tweeted that the nation was “shocked” by the “act of cowardice”.
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who is on a US tour, said: “All our thoughts are with those affected by this unfathomable attack, including a British child, and their families.
“I have been in contact with President Macron and we are ready to offer any help we can.”
A witness, Eleanor Vincent, told the BBC that she “knew something horrible had happened” as she approached the lake.
“People were busy on business or on vacation, just like me, and it’s shocking. I have no other way to describe it.”
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