The 20-year-old was then handed over to the Avignon authorities. The National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office has been notified of the incident, but so far has not taken up the investigation.
According to terrorism expert Jean-Charles Brisard, the president of the Centre for the Analysis of Terrorism, the 20-year-old was part of a deradicalisation programme and that his brother was a well-known jihadist who had returned from Syria in 2017 and was sentenced to 7 years in prison.
This incident is not the first to see a man yelling “Allahu Akbar” target French police this year. In January, officers in Metz shot a knifeman in the leg to subdue him, with witnesses saying he yelled “Allahu Akbar” during the attack.