| 2014 Nantes attack | |
|---|---|
 The Place Royale Christmas market one year after the attack | |
 Location ofLoire-Atlantique within France | |
| Location | Place Royale [fr],Nantes,France |
| Date | 22 December 2014 |
| Target | Civilians |
Attack type | Vehicular assault |
| Weapons | Whitevan |
| Deaths | 1 |
| Injured | 10 (including the suspect) |
| Victim | Virgile Porcher |
| Perpetrator | Sébastien Sarron |
| Motive | Suspected mental unbalance |
On 22 December 2014,Sébastien Sarron ran over ten pedestrians in his van at theChristmas market of the French city ofNantes, before attemptingsuicide by stabbing himself. Ten people, including the suspect, suffered non-fatal injuries. One man, Virgile Porcher, was pronounced dead the following day.[1]
The attack came a day after asimilar automotive attack on pedestrians inDijon, as well as two days after astabbing attack inside a police station inJoué-lès-Tours. Although the three attacks were treated as unrelated, the Government of France deployed 300 soldiers onto the nation's streets to heighten security afterwards.[2][3]
In 2016, theFinancial Times described this attack, the 21 December2014 Dijon attack,[4] and the 20 December2014 Tours police station stabbing as "the firstISIS-linked attacks" in France.[5]
French Interior MinisterBernard Cazeneuve said that the attacker in Nantes was "unbalanced".[2] There were initial reports that the attacker had shoutedAllahu Akbar ("God is Great"), however, police stated that a notebook in his van contained "incoherent suicidal phrases",[6] and his fear of being murdered by thesecret services.[7] A test found 1.80 g of alcohol per litre of blood, four times the maximum legal rate.[8][9]
The driver was Sébastien Sarron (38), a farmer fromBerneuil nearSaintes,Charente-Maritime.[10] After tending his wounds, he was transferred to a psychiatric hospital on 31 December.[8]
In January 2015 he was transferred to prison.[8] He was described as a loner, an alcoholic and paranoiac, but was declared by a psychiatrist as responsible enough to be tried.[1] He hanged himself in his isolation cell at the Nantes-Carquefouprison [fr] on the early morning of 13 April 2016.[1][7]
TheFinancial Times described in a July 2016 piece this attack, the 21 December2014 Dijon attack, and the 20 December2014 Tours police station stabbing as "the firstISIS-linked attacks" in France.[5] According toThe Globe and Mail, the attack was "apparently inspired by a video" circulated byISIL calling on French Muslims to attack non-Muslims using vehicles.[11]
According toDavid C. Rapoport of theUniversity of California, Los Angeles, these three attacks can be understood in the context of the rise of theIslamic State in Syria. "In September 2014, after the U.S. organized its airstrikes, the Islamic State’s chief spokesman called on Muslims in Western countries to find an infidel and ‘smash his head with a rock’, poison him, run him over with a car or ‘destroy his crops’. Two months later a video released in French contained virtually the same message, and a series of strange 'lone wolf' attacks followed on three consecutive days, the perpetrators declaring “'God is Great' in Arabic. Three policemen were stabbed in Joué-lès-Tours, and vehicles were used to run over eleven pedestrians in Dijon and ten in Nantes."[12]
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Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet announced an investigation into the Nantes attack, saying "I wouldn't say it was a terrorist attack. I would call it a deliberate act".
François Hollande, thePresident of France, ordered an emergency cabinet meeting as a result of the attack in Nantes.
Manuel Valls, thePrime Minister of France, aimed to reassure the French public that their concerns over the incidents would be listened to by the government.[2]
