PARIS (Reuters) -A driver ploughed into pedestrians and cyclists on France’s Oleron island off the Atlantic coast on Wednesday, injuring several people before being arrested, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said on X.
The 35-year-old suspect shouted “Allahu Akbar” (Arabic for “God is Greatest”) when arrested by police, the local prosecutor, Arnaud Laraize, told Sud Ouest newspaper.
At least nine people were injured, the mayor of Dolus-d’Oleron, Thibault Brechkoff, told BFM TV. Nunez said two of the injured were in intensive care – some French media later said that was the case for four of them.
Le Parisien newspaper said investigators were also looking into the possibility that the suspect might be mentally disturbed.
BFM said he was previously known to police for petty crime including driving while drunk, and drug-related offences.
France’s anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office was not in charge of the inquiry at this stage, French media reported. The prosecutor’s office could not immediately be reached for comment.
(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta, Inti Landauro and Benoit Van Overstraeten; writing by Ingrid Melander; editing by Mark Heinrich)
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