Paris: A policewoman who was shot by a man, carrying an automatic rifle, wearing a bullet-proof vest, just outside Paris, has died and a second victim is in serious condition, police said on Thursday.
The man escaped after the attack on Thursday morning, which comes just a day after a deadly Islamist assault on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo left 12 dead, although no link has yet been established between the two incidents.
As thousands of police in Paris tightened their net, the country marked a rare national day of mourning for Wednesday’s bloodbath at Charlie Hebdo, the worst terrorist attack in France. The discovery of the car, abandoned in the northern town of Villers-Cotterets, was a breakthrough in the frantic police hunt. Reports said two fugitives, still armed, had been spotted at a petrol station in the same area.
A source close to the case also said that Molotov cocktails and jihadist-style flags had been discovered in another vehicle used by the attackers in Paris. As police chased the gunmen, several incidents rocked the jittery nation, although it was not clear whether they were linked to the magazine attack.There was an explosion at a kebab shop in eastern France, with no casualties immediately reported. And two mosques were also fired at in the wake of Wednesday’s attacks, prosecutors said. Declaring Thursday a national day of mourning, President Hollande called the Charlie Hebdo bloodbath ‘an act of exceptional barbarity’.
Hebdo will come out next week
The French satirical newspaper whose staff was decimated in an Islamist attack will publish as scheduled next week, one of its surviving staff members said on Thursday.
Charlie Hebdo will publish next Wednesday to defiantly show that “stupidity will not win,” said columnist Patrick Pelloux, who is also an emergency room doctor.
He added that the remaining staff held a meeting on Thursday to discuss its future. “It’s very hard, but we will do it anyway because stupidity will not win,” said Pelloux.
