French President Emmanuel Macron vowed an "unrelenting fight" against Islamist extremists on Tuesday as he paid tribute to the four Paris police staff stabbed to death last week by a radicalized colleague.
"We will wage an unrelenting fight in the face of Islamist terrorism," Macron told a ceremony at the police headquarters where the attack took place.
Mickael Harpon, a 45-year-old computer expert in the police intelligence-gathering department, used a kitchen knife and an oyster shucker to kill three male and one female colleague in a 30-minute rampage that ended when an officer shot him in the head.
He had converted to Islam about 10 years ago and adopted increasingly radical beliefs, according to investigators.
Macron said it was "inconceivable and unacceptable" that Harpon, who had worked for the police since 2003, had managed to carry out an attack "in the very place where we pursue terrorists and criminals".
Addressing the police he said: "Your colleagues fell under the blows of a distorted, deadly Islam which we must eradicate."
French daily Le Parisien reported Tuesday that the attacker had a USB key with details on dozens of officers, raising fears he intended to pass them to other radicalized Islamists, a French daily reported Tuesday.
Citing sources close to the inquiry, Le Parisien said it was not clear if the attacker had the data on a USB key as part of his job or had surreptitiously extracted it.
But investigators have found that Harpon, who had access to classified data within the Paris police's intelligence division, had been in close contact with a hardline Salafist imam in the months before his knife rampage last week.
The USB key also had several propaganda videos from the Islamic State group.
The killings have raised serious questions about how police failed to notice various signs of Harpon's radicalization in recent years, despite France being on high alert over a wave of deadly jihadist attacks.
Interior Minister Christophe Castaner faced a closed-door grilling by a parliamentary intelligence delegation on Tuesday morning, ahead of questioning by a parliamentary commission.
He will then be questioned Thursday by a Senate panel as to why the red flags, including Harpon's public approval of the 2015 massacre of 12 people at the Charlie Hebdo newspaper, were not included in Harpon's file.
The interior ministry set up a dedicated cell after the attack to track potential Islamic radicals in France's security forces.
Le Parisien reported Tuesday that 19 ministry employees are currently under surveillance by anti-radicalization investigators.
AFP
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