A man armed with a knife tried to attack several gendarmes in Paris this Friday at the Arc de Triomphe, next to the Champs-Élysées. The officers participated in , which takes place every day. One of them shot him and quickly neutralized him. The attacker has died as a result of his injuries, as confirmed by the French Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office, which has opened an investigation.
Shortly after six in the afternoon, the individual “attacked a member of the gendarmerie with a knife and scissors. Another gendarme responded using the service weapon to neutralize the aggressor. The attacked agent was unharmed, as the knife hit the collar of his trench coat,” the Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement.
According to Le Figarothe detainee shouted to the agents: “We must not kill our women and our children. We will see who will triumph at the Arc de Triomphe.” The attack took place in one of the most tourist areas of the capital, due to its proximity to the Champs Elysées. The place has been cordoned off and the metro stations have been closed. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is the monument erected in tribute to the French soldiers who died in World War I.
Some French media have revealed the identity of the detainee. This is Brahim B., of French nationality and born in 1978. He was already booked by the police, as he was sentenced in Belgium to 17 years in prison for having tried to kill two police officers on June 8, 2012.
A year later he was convicted of attempted murder in connection with a terrorist organization, illegal possession of weapons and armed rebellion. He was transferred to France in January 2015 and released from prison in December 2025, as confirmed by the Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office. He lived in Seine-Saint-Denis, on the outskirts of Paris, and was under judicial control and geolocated by the police, obliged to report to the police station daily. The French intelligence services (DGSI, for its acronym in French) had warned of the high criminal risk of the individual, according to the newspaper Le Figaro.
The Minister of the Interior, Laurent Nuñez, has denounced that this individual “has tried to attack members of the gendarmerie and those of the group who were preparing for the ceremony with a knife,” he said during a visit to the city of Toulon.
From the French extreme right, , has highlighted that “although no gendarme has been injured, this knife attack reminds us that the fight against Islamist ideology is an absolute priority.”
