• A Syrian refugee armed with a knife wounded six people, including four children aged between 22 and 36 months, Thursday morning, spreading terror in a park on the shores of Lake Annecy. At this stage, his motives appear "without apparent terrorist motive," according to the prosecutor's office.
  • The news about the state of health of the four injured children "is positive", welcomed the head of state, who visited the site with his wife on Friday.
  • In the past, attacks on children have occurred in France. It is because there is "a kind of disloyalty in the fight, in the confrontational situation", that this type of attack particularly shocks, explains Mickaël Morlet-Rivelli, judicial expert in psychology at the Court of Appeal of Reims. He also notes that "people are all, more or less, able to project themselves into a role of parents".

Their names are Elio, Alba, Ettie and Peter. Aged between 22 and 36 months, these four children were seriously injured by the man armed with a knife who burst into a playground located a stone's throw from Lake Annecy on Thursday morning. The small victims, who were "in a state of absolute emergency" after the attack, were transferred to local hospitals in Grenoble and Geneva, Switzerland.

The news about their state of health "is positive", announced this Friday Emmanuel Macron, during a visit to the prefecture of Annecy. "Everything I have been told is going in the right direction," the head of state said. "Attacking children is the most barbaric act ever, and I think that's what upset us all," he said.



In the aftermath of the attack, four of the six victims of which are children, emotion is indeed very high in the country. "What provokes such an emotional reaction in the public is that children are vulnerable," confirms to 20 Minutes Mickaël Morlet-Rivelli, judicial expert in psychology at the Court of Appeal of Reims and doctoral student in psychology at the University of Caen Normandy and the International Center of Comparative Criminology of Montreal.

And the expert to go further in his explanations. "For physiological and psychological reasons, children aremore fragile than others. They are less able to defend themselves. They do not have a brain mature enough to anticipate danger or behavioral strategies to flee or deal with that danger. »

"If it had happened to my child, I wouldn't get over it"

It is therefore, he says, because there is "a kind of disloyalty in the fight, in the confrontational situation," that the attack particularly shocked the French. Mickaël Morlet-Rivelli also notes that "people are all, more or less, able to project themselves into a role of parents". "We say to ourselves: 'this is horrible because if this had happened to my child, I would not get over it,'" says the expert. He explains that "normal people are eminently empathetic." "This empathy allows us to project ourselves as a subject who has not experienced this. In other words, it's relieving because we say to ourselves: "if it happened to the other, it means that it did not happen to me". Finally, "everyone knows Annecy. It is easier for people to project themselves into a place they know, by name or because they have been there. »

As horrific as it is, this attack, whose target was presumably children, is not unprecedented in France. The last one was in March 2012. Terrorist Mohammed Merah, nicknamed "the scooter killer," killed seven people, including three Jewish children between the ages of 3 and 7. A few years earlier, in May 1993, Érick Schmitt, an unemployed and depressed entrepreneur, had held hostage, for two days, a kindergarten class in Neuilly-sur-Seine (Hauts-de-Seine). He was armed with an alarm gun and an explosive belt. The man, who calls himself "Human Bomb", was eventually shot dead by the Raid police. Three years later, he was imitated in Marseille by Nouredine Lounis. The latter had entered a kindergarten with a shotgun and had opened fire three times. He had taken hostage for two hours a teacher, a canteen and a passer-by. Before being neutralized by the police.

  • Miscellaneous facts
  • Annecy
  • Haute-Savoie
  • Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
  • Rhône-Alpes
  • Stabbing
  • Inquiry
  • Police
  • Aggression
  • Child