Target Civilians Weapons White van Perpetrator Sébastien Sarron Number of deaths 1 Location Nantes | Attack type Vehicular assault Victim Virgile Porcher Date 22 December 2014 Location Nantes, France | |
 | ||
Non-fatal injuries 10 (including the suspect) | ||
On 22 December 2014, Sébastien Sarron ran over ten pedestrians in his white van at the Christmas market of the French city of Nantes, and then attempted suicide by stabbing himself. Ten people, including the suspect, suffered non-fatal injuries, and one person, a man by the name of Virgile Porcher, was pronounced clinically dead the following day.
Contents
The attack came a day after a similar automotive attack on pedestrians in Dijon, and two days after a stabbing attack inside a police station in Joué-lès-Tours. Although the three attacks were treated as unrelated, the French government deployed 300 soldiers onto the nation's streets to heighten security afterwards.
Suspect
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said that the attacker in Nantes was "unbalanced". There were initial reports that the attacker had shouted the Islamic war cry Allahu Akbar ("God is Great"), as the Dijon attacker had done the previous night. However, police stated that a notebook in his van contained "incoherent suicidal phrases", and his fear of being murdered by the secret services. A test found 1.80 g of alcohol per litre of blood, four times the maximum legal rate. The question of whether the attack should be understood as motivated by radical Islamism is unclear. The driver was Sébastien Sarron, a 38-years-old farmer from Berneuil near Saintes, Charente-Maritime, After tending his wounds, he was transferred to a psychiatric hospital on 31 December. In January 2015 he was transferred to prison. He was described as a loner, an alcoholic and paranoiac, but was declared by a psychiatrist as responsible enough to be tried. He hanged himself in his isolation cell at the Nantes-Carquefou prison on the early morning of 13 April 2016.
Reaction
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, the President of France, ordered an emergency cabinet meeting as a result of the attack in Nantes.
Manuel Valls, the Prime Minister of France, aimed to reassure the French public that their concerns over the incidents would be listened to by the government.
According to the Globe and Mail, the attack was "apparently inspired by a video" circulated by ISIL calling on French Muslims to attack non-Muslims using vehicles.