French President Emmanuel Macron declared that the three-year-old British child who was stabbed by the French playground knifeman on Thursday is out of surgery and watching television.
During a meeting with rescue workers in Annecy, Macron said of young Ettie Turner: ‘She is watching TV and [the attack] is just a bad memory already. ‘Doctors are optimistic,’ he added, though he said caution was still required.
The ‘backpack hero’ who pursued Abdelmasih Hanoun, 31, away, however, has claimed that his Catholic religion gave him the fortitude to repel the assailant.
Henri d’Ansleme, 24, told reporters that while on a walking tour of France’s cathedrals, he stumbled across a playground in Annecy and witnessed a man attacking children in a stroller as their mother frantically attempted to protect them.
On camera, he can be seen pursuing the attacker onto the playground, attempting to block him with one of his two backpacks, and hurling one of them at the perpetrator.
Dubbed ‘the backpack hero’ (le héros au sac a dos) by media, the management and philosophy student suggested it was God’s will he was there to intervene.
‘All I know is that I was not there by chance. On my journey to the cathedrals I crossed paths with this man and I have acted instinctively. It was unthinkable to do nothing,’ the philosophy and management student told CNEWS.
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Henri’s remarks came as it became known that the knifeman who carried out the vicious attack on the young children had been spotted prowling around the playground ‘every day for two months earlier’.
The unsettling information on the events leading up to Thursday’s atrocity was revealed as self-described Syrian-Christian Hanoun was remanded in custody while being accused of numerous counts of attempted murder.
Meanwhile, Macron visited the alpine town on Friday and shook hands with Henri to thank him for his bravery.
