A chopper attack at the Lidl de Jeumont (North) left five injured on the evening of Monday, December 12, 2022. Three people are seriously affected but only the vital prognosis of the attacker who attempted suicide is engaged.
[Mis à jour le 13 décembre à 10h53] Horror scene at the Lidl de Jeumont. In the evening of Monday, around 7 p.m., customers who came to do their shopping in the supermarket of the city located in the North on the Franco-Belgian border were targeted by a man in his forties. The assailant armed with a chopper allegedly attacked several people chasing them in the store and injuring four in his run. The man dressed in shorts and a white t-shirt entered the store with several knives and a chopper in his bag, according to information from the Voice of the North. The daily describes the attacker as suffering from schizophrenia and claims that he was in crisis during the attack.
A dozen people, customers and employees included, were on site at the time of the attack and two individuals were seriously injured without their vital prognosis being engaged. Both were transported to the Valencienne hospital center, among them a woman cut in the head. Two other people were slightly affected, including a man who cut his finger trying to stop the attacker. All the other witnesses to the scene, including four children, were taken care of by a psychological cell with the help of doctors at the Timmermans home, again according to the northern newspaper. The Lidl store, whose floor was largely covered in blood, according to the police who witnessed the scene, is closed until further notice. The scene created shock in the city of Jeumont, the mayor Pascal Ori evoked a drama and addressed his thoughts to the victims reports Lille news “An investigation is already underway, led by the public prosecutor. Only this will allow us to know the exact circumstances”.
Attacker tried to take his own life
After chasing and attacking four people, the assailant turned a knife on himself and seriously injured his wrists and jugular. In view of the injuries, his vital prognosis is engaged. The man lost a lot of blood and was airlifted to Lille CHR. At this stage, the assailant has not been identified. He had no identity papers on him and the fingerprinting carried out by the police did not make it possible to put a name on the face of the forties who does not appear in any file.
The motivations for the attack are also unknown but the account of the facts already makes it possible to dismiss the thesis of a terrorist act according to a source close to the file quoted by RMC. Similarly, the track of religious motivations is excluded. Another police source confirmed for his part to theAFP : “No element currently allows to make any hypothesis about the motivation of the aggressor”. The identity and the motivations of the aggressor are as many questions to which the investigation opened yesterday must try to answer. On the evening of Monday, December 12, 2022, the public prosecutor, the prefect and the sub-prefect who had gone to the site did not wish to answer questions or expand on the case, preferring to wait for tangible elements.