A man was arrested after attempting to drive his vehicle through a crowd gathered outside a mosque in the Paris suburb of Creteil on Thursday, police said.
France’s Le Parisien newspaper reports that the man said he wanted “to take revenge for the Bataclan and Champs-Elysees” attacks.
The man rammed his SUV into protective barriers outside the Creteil mosque “multiple times” around 6:30 pm local time, according to a police statement.
“Because he couldn’t get through the barriers, he tried to go down another route but hit an obstacle and fled,” police said.
“We saw the car drive around the mosque three times,” an eyewitness told Le Parisien. “It was strange. All of a sudden it sped up. It seemed to me that it was clearly trying to knock over pedestrians.”
No one was wounded in the assault and the driver was arrested at his home a short time later.
“The police firmly condemn this act and are doing everything to investigate and understand the motivation of the driver,” the statement said.
France’s Interior Minister, Gerard Collomb offered his “total support” to the Muslim community in the wake of the incident.
In a statement, the Interior Ministry said it would be up to the police investigating the attack to discover exactly what motivated the perpetrator.
The incident comes 10 days after a man was arrested for ramming a van into a crowd outside a mosque in Finsbury Park, London. One person was killed and others were wounded in that attack. The driver was charged with terrorism-related murder and attempted murder.
CNN’s Saskya Vandoorne reported from Paris. Simon Cullen reported from London. CNN’s Bryony Jones contributed to this report.
