Two held as Paris pedestrian dies after being hit by electric scooter

French police have detained two women suspected of being on an electric scooter that fatally injured an Italian pedestrian in Paris, prosecutors said on Thursday.

Published: 24 June 2021 16:28 CEST

Two held as Paris pedestrian dies after being hit by electric scooter

The safety of scooters has been the subject of fierce debate in Paris. Illustration photo: Thomas Samson/AFP

The pair are suspected of fleeing the scene by the Seine river after the incident last week, which revived debate over the safety risks in allowing the devices on busy city streets.

A search for the riders and calls for witnesses were launched after the accident shortly after midnight on June 14th.

The victim, a 32-year-old Italian identified as Miriam, was with friends on a pedestrian stretch of the riverbank when she was hit by a scooter driven by two women.

She was taken to hospital in a critical condition and died two days later.

The two suspects face charges of manslaughter and fleeing the scene of an accident.

A #Miriam hashtag went viral in indignant social media posts, with many calling the scooters a public danger that should be subject to stricter controls.

Since 2018, Paris has been flooded with at least 15,000 electric scooters available for rent, drawing the ire of residents and city officials complaining they are cluttering up already crowded sidewalks and squares.

Officially they are forbidden on sidewalks and only one rider is allowed, but enforcement is scant and many riders, including tourists, ignore or are unaware of the rules.

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The French Jewish community, the third largest in the world, has for months been on edge in the face of a growing number of attacks and desecrations of memorials.

“National police in Rouen neutralised early this morning an armed individual who clearly wanted to set fire to the city’s synagogue,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Police responded at 6.45 am to reports of “fire near the synagogue”, a police source said.

A source close to the case told AFP the man “was armed with a knife and an iron bar, he approached police, who fired. The individual died”.

“It is not only the Jewish community that is affected. It is the entire city of Rouen that is bruised and in shock,” Rouen Mayor Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol wrote on X.

He made clear there were no other victims other than the attacker.

Two separate investigations have been opened, one into the fire at the synagogue and another into the circumstances of the death of the individual killed by the police, Rouen prosecutors said.

Such an investigation by France’s police inspectorate general is automatic whenever an individual is killed by the police.

The man threatened a police officer with a knife and the latter used his service weapon, said the Rouen prosecutor.

The dead man was not immediately identified, a police source said.

Asked by AFP, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office said that it is currently assessing whether it will take up the case.

France has the largest Jewish community of any country after Israel and the United States, as well as Europe’s largest Muslim community.

There have been tensions in France in the wake of the October 7th attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel, followed by the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Red hand graffiti was painted onto France’s Holocaust Memorial earlier this week, prompted anger including from President Emmanuel Macron who condemned “odious anti-Semitism”.

“Attempting to burn a synagogue is an attempt to intimidate all Jews. Once again, there is an attempt to impose a climate of terror on the Jews of our country. Combating anti-Semitism means defending the Republic,” Yonathan Arfi, the president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF). wrote on X.

France was hit from 2015 by a spate of Islamist attacks that also hit Jewish targets. There have been isolated attacks in recent months and France’s security alert remains at its highest level.