Macron Says 'positive' News On Children Hurt In France Knife Attack

Annecy, France, June 9 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 10th Jun, 2023 ) :French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday said the health of the preschool children badly wounded in a mass knife attack by a Syrian refugee was "heading in the right direction", as the attacker refused to cooperate with police.

Four children -- aged between 22 months and three years old -- were stabbed Thursday in a playground in the Alpine town of Annecy, a normally idyllic lakeside spot popular with tourists.

As social media flooded with praise for rescue workers and a man hailed as a hero for chasing the attacker out of the area, sources close to the investigation said the attacker was remaining "totally silent" and "obstructing justice." Prosecutors insisted they did not see a terror motive in the attack, but the rampage intensified tensions in France over immigration, with right-wing politicians seizing on the suspect's origins.

Macron and his wife Brigitte arrived in the southeastern city of Grenoble, where three of the children are being treated.

"Everything that I was told is heading in the right direction," he said in Annecy after visiting the wounded toddlers in hospital, adding that news on their condition was "positive".

"Attacking children is the most barbaric act there is," he said, highlighting his "pride" over the work of rescuers.

The fourth child, a Dutch citizen, is in a Swiss hospital over the border in Geneva. She is "out of danger", the Netherlands' Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra said.

One of the victims is British and the others French.