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Park stabbing joins France’s long list of violent attacks

People lay flowers in a park where children were stabbed - Peter Byrne/PA
People lay flowers in a park where children were stabbed - Peter Byrne/PA

The stabbings in the tourist town of Annecy joins a growing list of violent acts that have been inflicted on France in recent years.

Four toddlers and two adults were injured during the incident in the French Alps.

Since Kalashnikov-wielding terrorists – the French-born brothers, Saïd and Chérif Kouachi – slaughtered 11 people in the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in 2015, more than 250 people have been killed in Islamic violence in the country.

Unlike that attack, Thursday’s incident at a lakeside park was not classified as an act of terror by the French authorities.

Most notable of the spate of terror strikes was the events of November 13 2015, when jihadists stormed the Bataclan theatre, a music venue in the French capital, killing 90.

Man arrested after stabbing four children in Annecy
Man arrested after stabbing four children in Annecy

The next year, almost 90 people were killed when a 19-tonne lorry drove into a crowd of Bastille Day revellers in an attack on the Riviera resort of Nice.

A gunman leapt from the lorry and fired into the crowds on the seafront Promenade des Anglais, an area known to be packed with tourists and locals.

Days after on July 26 2016, two attackers killed a priest and seriously wounded another hostage in a church in northern France before being shot dead by police.

Francois Hollande, France’s president at the time, said the abductors had pledged allegiance to Islamic State.

Four people were later killed when a gunman with ties to ISIS attacked and stole a car in Carcassonne, killing the passenger and wounding the driver on March 23 2018.

Officers evacuate people from Bataclan theatre - Reuters/Christian Hartmann
Officers evacuate people from Bataclan theatre - Reuters/Christian Hartmann

Eight months later on December 11, a gunman opened fire just outside the Christmas Market in Strasbourg, as the European Parliament sat for its last session of the year nearby, killing five people.

One person died and nine more were injured on August 31 2019, when an Afghan asylum-seeker attacked commuters at a metro station in Lyon.

Soon after on October 3 2019, Mickael Harpon, 45, an IT specialist with security clearance to work in the Paris police headquarters, killed three police officers and one civilian employee before being shot dead by police. He had converted to Islam 10 years earlier.

On October 16 2020, a Chechen refugee, 18-year-old Abdoullakh Abouyezidovich Anzorov, beheaded teacher Samuel Paty in Éragny-sur-Oise, northwest Paris.

People add flowers to a memorial in Strasbourg - SEBASTIEN BOZON/AFP
People add flowers to a memorial in Strasbourg - SEBASTIEN BOZON/AFP

The middle school teacher had recently given a lecture on freedom of speech, which featured caricatures of the Muslim prophet Mohammed.

Days later on October 29, an Islamic terrorist killed three people in a knife attack at the Roman Catholic Notre-Dame de Nice.

One victim, an elderly woman, received a deep cut to the throat that was later described as “like a decapitation”.

Less than a year later, on February 19 2021, a Sudanese refugee stabbed and killed an employee at a centre for asylum seekers in the southern French city of Pau, after his request for political asylum was rejected.