Female police officer dies in stabbing attack in France
A female police officer has been killed by a knife-wielding assailant at a police station outside the French capital, Paris.
The attack took place in the secure entrance area of the police station in Rambouillet, a wealthy commuter town 60 kilometers from Paris, at around 2:20 pm (1220 GMT) on Friday.
A police source who spoke on the condition of anonymity told AFP that the 49-year-old victim died of her wounds after being stabbed in the throat twice during the assault.
The attacker was a 36-year-old Tunisian man who was unknown to security services. He was fatally wounded when another officer opened fire on him at the station.
Both French Prime Minister Jean Castex and Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin announced they were on their way to the scene of the attack.
French prosecutors have opened a terrorism investigation into the fatal stabbing of the police officer.
France has faced a series of terrorist attacks over the past year.
In October, three people were murdered in a knife attack by a 21-year-old Tunisian man at the Notre Dame church in the French city of Nice.
The attack came less than two weeks after the beheading by a Chechen extremist of a teacher who showed offensive cartoons of Prophet Muhammed to his pupils in a school near Paris.
Following the terrorist attacks, the French government introduced a bill that allowed for a crackdown on groups and individuals suspected of extremism and undermining the country’s secular principles.
The bill, together with French President Emmanuel Macron’s insulting remarks against the religion of Islam and its followers, drew widespread criticism both at home and worldwide.
The debate around the bill was reignited early this month after French lawmakers added an amendment that would even prohibit minors from wearing Muslim headscarves in public.
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