PARIS (Reuters) -A driver rammed into pedestrians and cyclists on France’s Oleron island off the Atlantic coast on Wednesday, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said, and at least nine people were injured before he was arrested, according to local officials.
The 35-year-old suspect shouted “Allahu Akbar” (Arabic for “God is Greatest”) when arrested by police, the local prosecutor, Arnaud Laraize, told Sud Ouest newspaper.
Local lawmaker Olivier Falorni, however, said the motive for the attack on a quiet island popular with summer tourists remained unknown, saying the suspect was not on France’s watchlist of radicalised individuals.
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“We’re dealing with an individual who lives on the island, and the victims also live on the island,” Falorni told reporters in parliament in Paris. “Is this a settling of scores? Or an Islamist attack? I have no idea. Is there a political motive? Is it someone mentally unstable who snapped?”
French media said the anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office was not in charge of the inquiry at this stage, and that an investigation for attempted murder was for now being handled by the local prosecutor’s office in La Rochelle.
The anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office could not immediately be reached for comment.
At least nine people were injured when the suspect’s car hit them in various areas of Oleron island, the mayor of Dolus-d’Oleron, Thibault Brechkoff, told BFM TV. Nunez said two of the injured were in intensive care – some French media later said that was the case for four of them.
Le Parisien newspaper said investigators were looking into the possibility that the suspect might be mentally disturbed.
KNOWN TO POLICE FOR PETTY CRIME, MEDIA SAY
The man was previously known to police for petty crime including driving while drunk, as well as drug-related offences, local newspaper Charente Libre and other French media reported, citing the mayor of Saint-Pierre d’Oleron, Christophe Sueur.
“He is known for minor offences such as theft,” Sud Ouest newspaper quoted Laraize, the prosecutor, as saying. “He was not on the S watchlist,” he said.
Charente Libre newspaper said the suspect is French, without citing sources.
The suspect also tried to set fire to his car, which contained one or several gas canisters, French media reported.
The far-right National Rally party said one of its parliamentary assistants was among those injured in the attack.
(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta, Inti Landauro, Dominique Vidalon and Benoit Van Overstraeten; writing by Ingrid Melander; editing by Mark Heinrich)
