An Algerian journalist who attacked a policeman in Paris left a video in which he claimed allegiance to the Islamic State group, police said today.
Officers found the video in the lodgings of Farid Ikken, 40, at a student residence in the northern Paris suburbs as family and colleagues described him as a kindly journalist and doctoral student who was religious but had never displayed a hint of radical views.
Ikken is under guard at a Paris hospital after being shot in the chest by police as he assaulted an officer with a hammer yesterday afternoon on the square in front of Notre-Dame cathedral.
He shouted "this is for Syria" as he lunged at the officer. He was also carrying two kitchen knives.
Christophe Castaner, the government spokesman, said today that Ikken, who was preparing a doctorate at Metz university in Lorraine, had never shown any sign of radical beliefs and had acted alone as far as police knew. "You can easily see how difficult it is to anticipate an act of this kind," he said.
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Ikken's profile is far removed from those of the disaffected young extremists who have carried out a dozen attacks in France over the past three years. From a middle-class family, he worked as a journalist in Sweden after 2000, marrying and later divorcing a Swedish woman.
He earned a masters degree in Sweden and also worked in Norway. He returned to Algeria after the 2011 Arab uprising, set up a regional news site and worked on Al Watan, a national newspaper, before moving to France in 2013.
Arnaud Mercier, his thesis director at Metz, said: "The Farid I knew was the exact opposite" of a jihadist. "He was rather westernised and defended the values of democracy and freedom of the press. I never heard him pronounce the slightest word of hatred towards anyone. He was as gentle as a lamb."
Mr Mercier had, however, lost touch with Ikken in recent months.
Sofiane Ikken, an Algerian lawyer who is the attacker's nephew, said that the family was stunned to hear of his act. "He was against Isis. He even told me that its chief Al Baghdadi was a creation of the West. He did not believe in Isis at all but he was very sensitive to the situation in Syria", Mr Ikken told TSA-Algerie, a French-language Algerian site. Ikken's Facebook account voices solidarity with "the massacred Syrian people".
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Ikken was the only member of his family who observed Muslim rituals but this had never been a problem, his nephew said. "I think that he began to take an interest in religion during his time in Sweden," he added.
In his LinkedIn account, Farid Ikken writes in English: "My research project is focusing on new media issues in the Maghreb region and the covering of presidential elections in time of instability. The Arab spring as a major political event, these last years in the area is given an important place in my research."
Ikken, who is in serious condition, is expected to be charged with attempted murder in a terrorist cause.