French police arrested a man suspected of driving a stolen car at a group of soldiers jogging outside their base in the foothills of the Alps on Thursday, a police source said.
The car was driven towards a group of soldiers who were returning from a football match near their barracks at about 9 am in Varces-Allières-et-Risset, near Grenoble, army spokesman Col Benoît Brulon told AFP.
“The soldiers managed to get up onto the pavement without being hit,” Brulon said. Nobody was reported injured.
The local public prosecutor Jean-Yves Coquillat has opened an investigation into the incident for attempted murder.
“We’re just starting the inquiry so we must remain careful as to the suspect’s motives,” Coquillat said. “Anti-terrorist judges might be instructed depending on how the situation evolves,” he added.
The suspect was arrested in the stolen Peugeot 208 in Grenoble, about 15 kilometers to the north of Varces-Allieres-et-Risset, where the incident took place.
The incident caused a flurry of alarm coming days after an ISIS loyalist went on a rampage in southern France last Friday, killing four people. It was the first militant attack since President Emmanuel Macron lifted a state of emergency.
Thursday’s incident appeared deliberate because there was a gap of around 30 minutes between the driver hurling insults at the soldiers and driving back to hit them, Pierre-Yves Sarzaud of the army’s public relations unit told BFM TV.
If confirmed to be a deliberate act, it would not be the first time an assailant has used a vehicle to target members of the security forces in France. In August, police shot and arrested a man who deliberately rammed his car into soldiers beginning a patrol in a plush Paris suburb, injuring six.
The driver targeted soldiers from the 7th Mountain Battalion. Earlier, officials had said the soldiers belonged to the 93rd Mountain Artillery regiment.
The town’s mayor said schoolchildren were being kept indoors while the driver remained at large, local media reported.
A source close to the investigation said the driver’s motivations remained unclear but that the incident was being taken seriously.
