Two hurt in Paris knife attack near former Charlie Hebdo offices, says French PM

A man armed with a knife seriously wounded two people on Friday in a suspected terrorist attack outside the former offices of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo in Paris.

French police rush to the attack scene in Paris. Picture: AFP

Two people were seriously hurt in a vicious knife attack outside the former offices of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo at the time a court trial had restarted for accomplices of the 2015 attack.

Paris police said the two victims were stabbed late on Friday morning on Rue Nicolas Appert, just off Boulevard Richard Lenoir in the 11th arrondissement where the magazine was formerly housed.

The victims worked for TV production company Premieres Lignes, which has offices in the same building formerly occupied by Charlie Hebdo.

“Two colleagues were smoking cigarettes in the street. I heard screams,” an employee said.

“I went to the window and saw a colleague, bloodied, being chased by a man with a machete.

“We know that our two colleagues are injured, but we do not know more for the moment.”

Local schools were shut down and the central Paris district cordoned off as anti-terrorist police swarmed the area.

French firefighters load one of the injured into an ambulance. Picture: AFP

A large knife, described by other witnesses as a meat cleaver, was found nearby.

One suspect was arrested in the Bastille area and another near the Richard Lenoir metro station.

France’s counter-terrorism prosecutors’ office immediately opened an investigation “into ­attempted murder in relation to a terrorist enterprise’’.

The interior ministry also opened a crisis control centre, fearing the attack may be the start of a co-ordinated campaign.

Prime Minister Jean Castex was notified of the attack during a press conference that he cut short to get to the scene.

“A serious event has taken place in Paris. Four people have been wounded and it seems that two are in a serious condition,’’ he said.

The attack comes amid heightened security around the trial of 14 accomplices of brothers and al-Qa’ida operatives Said and Cherif Kouachi, who carried out a shocking terrorist attack inside the Charlie Hebdo magazine offices, killing 12 including journalists and cartoonists five years ago.

In the following days a policewoman and then four men were killed in a Jewish supermarket by another al-Qa’ida operative, Amedy Coulibaly. All three terrorists were killed in police raids.

The 14 defendants in the trial, which opened on September 2, are accused of assisting the terrorists by buying weapons and cars, and helping with logistics.

Three, including the only woman accused, Coulibaly’s wife Hayat Boumeddiene, are being tried in absentia after fleeing to Syria to join Islamic State in the days after the attacks.

The trial had resumed just ­before Friday’s attack following a day’s pause after a suspect’s ­coronavirus test came back negative.

To coincide with the trial Charlie Hebdo magazine once again republished several controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that had angered Muslims around the world. The front cover was accompanied by the headline “All that for that”.

Cartoonist Laurent Sourisseau wrote in the edition: “We will never lie down. We will never give up.”

Sourisseau, known as Riss, along with other cartoonists Stephane “Charb” Charbonnier and Renald “Luz” Luzier, were ­initially under police protection in 2012 when Charlie Hebdo first ran the controversial cartoons that had been published in a ­Danish newspaper.

In the 2015 attacks Charb’s bodyguard pulled out his gun in the editorial room but was killed in the gunfire.

More than 100 French news outlets on Wednesday called on people to support Charlie Hebdo, taking aim against the “enemies of freedom”.

Police moved the head of human resources at Charlie Hebdo, Marika Bret, from her home after death threats received last week.

Additional reporting: AFP