PARIS (Reuters) – A motorist deliberately drove his car into two police motorcyclists on patrol in a Paris suburb on Monday, gravely injuring both, police unions said.
The incident took place in Colombes in the northwestern outskirts of Paris.
Video footage circulating on social media and on the website of daily newspaper Le Parisien showed one motorbike sandwiched between the crumpled bonnets of a police car and a black BMW. Debris from a second bike lay strewn on the road.
“Two police motorcyclists in a serious condition after being deliberately hit in Colombes by an individual who also rammed a police car. Thoughts with our colleagues,” the Synergie-Officiers union wrote on social media.
Interior Minister Christophe Castaner hailed the response of officers who gave first aid to their comrades at the scene.
“My thoughts go out to the two injured policemen who were committed to protecting us,” Castaner wrote on Twitter.
Police sources called the incident a deliberate act. Sources familiar with the investigation said the perpetrator targeted the officers to avenge events in Palestine.
France’s anti-terrorism prosecutor has so far not been called on to lead the investigation.
France has suffered major attacks by Islamist militants. Police and soldiers have been targeted on multiple occasions in recent years.
In October, an information technology assistant at the police headquarters in central Paris went on a knife rampage inside the building, killing four people before he was shot dead. He had converted to Islam a decade earlier.
(Reporting by Reuters staff; Writing by Richard Lough; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
