Knife Attack at Paris Train Station Injures Six

Facts

• A man with a knife wounded five passengers and a border police officer on Wednesday morning at the busy Gare du Nord train station in Paris, France. The unnamed assailant was subsequently shot by police and is currently in critical condition.
• French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin stated the man attacked travelers with what looked like a homemade weapon at 6:42 a.m. local time before off-duty officers returning home shot him three times within a minute of the attack.
• Four of the five passengers attacked sustained light injuries, while one was seriously injured in the shoulder and taken for emergency treatment. The officer attacked was stabbed in the back but was saved by a bulletproof vest.
• Rail operator SNCF said a security perimeter had been implemented, but the station operations have since operated normally, with the Paris prosecutor saying a criminal investigation had been opened.
• Authorities say the attack at Europe's busiest railroad — with services to Belgium, Italy, and Britain — has no known motive yet, including terrorism, though France remains on alert following several attacks since 2015.
• The attack comes less than three weeks after three people were killed and another three injured in an attack at a Kurdish cultural center in Paris. Murder and attempted murder investigations are also underway for that attack.

Sources: Al Jazeera, New York Post, CBS, Sky, and Washington Examiner.

Narratives

• Left narrative, as provided by Jacobin. With French citizens facing yet another armed attack, it's clear that Paris has not only a violent racism problem — given the assault on Kurds last month — but also a domestic terrorism problem more generally. Both French and Turkish nationalists are now known to have stirred this hatred, and the recent stretch of protests and attacks will only continue until concrete action is taken.
• Right narrative, as provided by Breitbart. France does have a crime problem, but what's often not mentioned is that it's disproportionately coming from young migrants. Tens of thousands of thefts are attributed to these new arrivals, some of whom become violent using knives or guns, and if the government continues to ignore this issue, it may very well only get worse.