It goes without saying that France is on edge following the attacks by Islamic State that left some 130 people dead in Paris on a Friday night that will forever live in infamy.
The alleged ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud - who was emir of war in Deir Ezzour - was also planning to attack the French capital's La Defense business district. We say “was” because Abaaoud was blown to pieces in a siege on an apartment in Saint-Denis.
But the “cause” didn’t die with the Paris “mastermind” and now, the French live in a perpetual state of angst that’s even more acute now than it was in the wake of Charlie Hebdo.
Speaking of Charlie Hebdo, today is the one year anniversary of the horrific attacks that left 12 people dead at the offices of the satire mag. Apparently, one man decided to “celebrate” by attacking a police station in Northern Paris - with a knife.
According to multiple reports, the would-be assailant shouted “Allahu Akbar” before attempting to enter the building.
He was promptly shot.
“He fell immediately,” Luc Poignant, a police union representative, told BFM.
Apparently, there were “wires on the man,” and so, a bomb squad robot was sent in to “inspect” his corpse.
Although the explosive vest appears to have been fake, schools in the area were closed as a precaution. "Two schools on Goutte d’Or street, were closed and the children locked inside," Bloomberg reports. “We must be constantly vigilant", Pierre-Henry Brandet, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said.
Indeed we must, because as Charlie Hebdo notes on the cover of its anniversary edition, "the assassin is still out there"...