Several lightly wounded in knife attack at Paris train station

Several people were lightly wounded on Wednesday by a man wielding a knife at the busy Gare du Nord station in Paris, French authorities said.

The man was arrested by police at the station — serving as a hub for trains to London and northern Europe — after they opened fire and wounded him, said a police source who asked not to be named.

“An individual injured several people this morning at the Gare du Nord,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on Twitter.

“He was quickly neutralised. Thank you to the police for their effective and courageous response”.

The incident has caused major delays to trains at the station in the early morning rush, according to the live departure board of operator SNCF.

The attacker’s motive was not immediately clear. France remains on a state of heightened security alert after a spate of deadly attacks by Islamist radicals since 2015.

The country has repeatedly taken actions and put restrictions in an attempt to fight what it describes as “Islamist separatism”.

French right-wing politician Marine Le Pen has previously said that the hijab could not be viewed as a sign of a person’s religious belief but was an “Islamist uniform” that needed to be banned from French public space.

However, lawyers in France had said banning the hijab would violate the French constitution.

In December 2021, France ordered the closure of a mosque in the north of the country because of what authorities said was the radical nature of its imam’s preaching. It said the sermons there incited hatred and violence and defended jihad.