Five people have been injured, two of them seriously, after a driver “deliberately” mowed down pedestrians and cyclists on a small French island off the Atlantic coast, prosecutors say.
The incident happened around 9am local time (8:00 GMT) on Wednesday at the tourist hot spot of Ile d’Oleron, when the motorist smashed into people multiple times along a main road over the course of 35 minutes, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said from the scene.
The alleged driver was arrested and is being investigated for attempted murder, Nunez said. Local media identified him as a 35-year-old French national living in a nearby fishing community.
Earlier in the day, prosecutor Arnaud Laraize said the suspect shouted “God is the greatest” in Arabic when he was arrested. Nunez told reporters the case is not being investigated for “terrorism”.
The sleepy isle of Oleron – home to about 21,000 full-time residents – was left reeling on Wednesday afternoon as two helicopters ferried the seriously injured victims to the mainland and a crisis centre was set up.
“We are extremely shocked,” Thibault Brechkoff, mayor of the island’s Dolus d’Oleron commune, told BFM-TV, adding that he personally contacted the mother of one of the victims.
“You’re never prepared to announce news like this,” he said.
Officials gave differing injury counts, but Nunez confirmed that one 22-year-old woman received multiple traumas. Others were treated for a range of injuries and psychological shock, officials said.
The mayor of nearby Saint-Pierre-d’Oleron, Christophe Sueur, told the Associated Press news agency that the driver was “fully aware of what he was doing”.
Another source told the AFP news agency that police used a taser to arrest the suspect as he set his car on fire.
The vehicle appeared to have been heavily burned, with its front ripped off, as police collected evidence later in the day.
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