France seems to be witnessing more gratuitous attacks and stabbings. On Boxing Day afternoon, in the middle of central Paris, a man went on a knife rampage through the metro. He struck out at random, stabbing women on station platforms at République, Arts et Métiers and Opéra. There was screaming. There was blood. One of the victims was pregnant. There was no argument, no robbery, and no apparent motive. The attacks were entirely indiscriminate.

Random violence has become part of the background noise of public life

After each assault, the attacker didn’t run, he boarded the next train. Passengers recoiled. Doors closed. The train moved on. Station by station, through some of the busiest metro stations in the city, he continued.

This unfolded between four and five in the afternoon, when the underground was full of shoppers, commuters and tourists moving through Paris over the Christmas period. Yet no one stopped him. No one appears to have chased him. Police got to each scene too late.

When the rampage was over, the attacker left the network and travelled home, seemingly undisturbed. Hours later, police arrested him outside his house in Sarcelles, a densely populated northern suburb of Paris. Fortunately, no one died, although three women were injured. 

The suspect is a Malian man, already known to police. He had been imprisoned in January 2024 for aggravated theft and sexual assault, before being released in July this year. Five months later, he was free to roam central Paris on Boxing Day afternoon with a knife.

His release followed a period in administrative detention. He was held for the maximum 90-days designed to organise........

© The Spectator