On 23 April 2021, a man stabbed a police employee to death at a
police station
A police station (sometimes called a "station house" or just "house") is a building which serves to accommodate police officers and other members of staff. These buildings often contain offices and accommodation for personnel and vehicles, al ...
in
Rambouillet
Rambouillet (, , ) is a subprefecture of the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region of France. It is located beyond the outskirts of Paris, southwest of its centre. In 2018, the commune had a population of 26,933.
Rambouillet lies ...
At around 2:20pm on 23 April 2021 a fatal stabbing occurred in Rambouillet,
Yvelines
Yvelines () is a department in the western part of the Île-de-France region in Northern France. In 2019, it had a population of 1,448,207. The knifeman was shot twice by police at the scene and died from his wounds.
Attacker
The attacker was named as Jamel Gorchene, a 36-year-old Tunisian man who arrived in France illegally in 2009 who was not known to security services. He lived illegally in France for ten years until he obtained residency papers in 2020 which were valid until December 2021. He had recently moved to Rambouillet.
His
Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
posts were almost exclusively concerned with the defence of the
Muslim
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
community and
Islamophobia
Islamophobia is the fear of, hatred of, or prejudice against the religion of Islam or Muslims in general, especially when seen as a geopolitical force or a source of terrorism.
The scope and precise definition of the term ''Islamophobia'' ...
. In October 2020, a few days after a
jihadist
Jihadism is a neologism which is used in reference to "militant Islamic movements that are perceived as existentially threatening to the West" and "rooted in political Islam."Compare: Appearing earlier in the Pakistani and Indian media, Wes ...
murdered French schoolteacher Samuel Paty, he changed his profile picture and joined an online campaign named ''Respectez Mohamed prophète de Dieu'' (English: respect Mohammed, the prophet of God).
Gorchene watched videos which glorified and encouraged martyrdom and jihad before his attack.
Victim
The dead woman, Stéphanie Monfermé, was a 49-year-old mother of two. According to police sources referenced by
Agence France-Presse
Agence France-Presse (AFP) is a French international news agency headquartered in Paris, France. Founded in 1835 as Havas, it is the world's oldest news agency.
AFP has regional headquarters in Nicosia, Montevideo, Hong Kong and Washington, D.C ...
, she had worked for the police for 28 years. She worked in administration and was not a police officer, and consequently did not wear a
uniform
A uniform is a variety of clothing worn by members of an organization while participating in that organization's activity. Modern uniforms are most often worn by armed forces and paramilitary organizations such as police, emergency services, se ...
or carry a sidearm.
A ceremony was held in Rambouillet 26 April to commemorate Monfermé which was attended by government ministers, her husband and two daughters, and hundreds of French mourners.
Reaction
Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...
Jean Castex
Jean Castex (; born 25 June 1965) is a French politician who was the country's Prime Minister from 3 July 2020 to 16 May 2022. He was a member of The Republicans (LR) until 2020, when he joined La République En Marche! (LREM). Castex served fo ...
and
Interior Minister
An interior minister (sometimes called a minister of internal affairs or minister of home affairs) is a cabinet official position that is responsible for internal affairs, such as public security, civil registration and identification, emergency ...
Gérald Darmanin
Gérald Moussa Darmanin (; born 11 October 1982) is a French politician who has been serving as Minister of the Interior in the governments of Prime Ministers Jean Castex and Élisabeth Borne since 2020.
A former member of The Republicans (L ...
visited the scene of the attack and president
Emmanuel Macron
Emmanuel Macron (; born 21 December 1977) is a French politician who has served as President of France since 2017. ''Ex officio'', he is also one of the two Co-Princes of Andorra. Prior to his presidency, Macron served as Minister of Econ ...
visited the family of the victim.
An investigation into the attack was launched by the French (PNAT). Macron reaffirmed his opposition to
Islamic terrorism
Islamic terrorism (also known as Islamist terrorism or radical Islamic terrorism) refers to terrorist acts with religious motivations carried out by fundamentalist militant Islamists and Islamic extremists.
Incidents and fatalities f ...
.
National Rally
The National Rally (french: Rassemblement National, ; RN), until 2018 known as the National Front (french: link=no, Front National, ; FN), is a Far-right politics, far-rightAbridged list of reliable sources that refer to National Rally as fa ...
leader
Marine Le Pen
Marion Anne Perrine "Marine" Le Pen (; born 5 August 1968) is a French lawyer and politician who ran for the French presidency in 2012, 2017, and 2022. A member of the National Rally (RN; previously the National Front, FN), she served as its pre ...
criticised the decision to grant French residency to an
illegal immigrant
Illegal immigration is the migration of people into a country in violation of the immigration laws of that country or the continued residence without the legal right to live in that country. Illegal immigration tends to be financially upwar ...