PARIS: A man armed with a meat cleaver wounded two in Paris Friday outside the former offices of satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo before being arrested by police, three weeks into the trial of suspected accomplices in the 2015 massacre of the newspaper's staff.
France's PNAT specialist anti-terror prosecution office said it had opened a probe into charges of "attempted murder related to a terrorist enterprise" as well as "conspiracy with terrorists." Charlie Hebdo has angered many Muslims around the world by publishing cartoons over the years, and in a defiant gesture ahead of the trial reprinted some of the caricatures on its front cover this month. Twelve people, including some of France's most celebrated cartoonists, were killed in the January 7, 2015, attack on Charlie Hebdo by Islamist gunmen. Paris police said two people were "critically wounded" in Friday's attack near the paper's former offices in the capital's 11th district. The magazine's new address is kept secret for security reasons.
A large meat cleaver found near the scene is believed to have been used by the attacker.
Prime Minister Jean Castex, visiting the scene with Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, said the lives of the two victims "are not in danger, thank God."
The Premieres Lignes news production agency said the wounded were its employees -- a man and a woman taking a cigarette break outside.
"They were both very badly wounded," the founder and co-head of Premieres Lignes, Paul Moreira, told AFP. Another employee, who asked not to be named, said he heard screams.
"I went to the window and saw a colleague, bloodied, being chased by a man with a machete."
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