The man who apparently attacked two people with a meat cleaver in Paris on Friday told investigators that he wanted to target the weekly satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, according to a report.
Seven people were detained after a man and a woman were attacked while standing outside the former offices of Charlie Hebdo, where 12 people were killed in 2015 after the magazine published cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad. A police source who spoke with Reuters said the attacker wanted to harm employees at the magazine.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told reporters that the suspected attacker was born in Pakistan and migrated to France as an unaccompanied minor in 2017.
Neither of the two people seriously injured during the attack worked for Charlie Hebdo, which has been run out of a secret location since the shootings in 2015. The two injured persons are employees of a television production company that took over the building after Charlie Hebdo vacated the premises.
The stabbing came only weeks after a trial for the 14 alleged accomplices in the Charlie Hebdo attack began in France.
