2025 Mulhouse Stabbing Attack, France

Overview

At approximately 3:40 p.m. on 22 February 2025, a man armed with a knife and a screwdriver approached two police officers patrolling a market on the covered canal in Mulhouse, in France's Alsace region, and stabbed one in the neck and the other in the chest, seriously wounding both. He then fatally stabbed a bystander, 69-year-old Lino Sousa Loureiro, a Portuguese national who had lived in Mulhouse since 1992 and had intervened during the attack. The assailant was subdued and arrested at the scene; five additional police officers sustained minor injuries during his arrest. A demonstration in support of the Democratic Republic of the Congo was taking place nearby at the time of the attack.

The attacker was identified as Brahim Abdessemed, a 37-year-old Algerian national who had entered France illegally in 2014. Witnesses reported he shouted "Allahu Akbar" during the assault, prompting local prosecutors to open a terrorism investigation that was subsequently transferred to France's National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor's Office (PNAT).

Attribution

Abdessemed had been on a French terrorism watchlist and was convicted in December 2023 of incitement to terrorism after posting a video, made in the aftermath of the 7 October 2023 Hamas-led attacks on Israel, calling on Muslims to take up arms. He served four months of a six-month sentence, after which he was placed under house arrest and ordered to leave France. French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said Abdessemed had been diagnosed with a "schizophrenic profile" while in detention and that France had attempted to deport him ten times, but Algeria had refused to accept his return each time.

Legal Proceedings

The PNAT assumed responsibility for the terrorism investigation following the attack. Two members of Abdessemed's family and the person with whom he lodged were arrested and questioned in the days following the attack as part of the broader inquiry into his radicalisation and support network.

Context

The attack intensified a long-running French political debate over the deportation of foreign nationals flagged as security risks who cannot be removed due to the refusal of their countries of origin to accept them, an issue Interior Minister Retailleau highlighted explicitly in his public remarks. It occurred amid a broader run of Islamist-linked attacks across France and neighbouring European countries in early 2025.

International Response

President Emmanuel Macron stated there was "no doubt" the stabbing was an "Islamist terrorist attack" and offered condolences to the victim's family. Mulhouse Mayor Michèle Lutz said "horror has seized our city," and more than a thousand residents gathered for a vigil at the town hall days after the attack. The mayor of Walsall, England, a town twinned with Mulhouse, sent a message of solidarity.