The knife attack on Tuesday September 2, 2025 in Marseille, in the Belsunce district, continues to arouse questions and feed divergent stories.
The French authorities maintain that a 35 -year -old Tunisian man injured five people with stabbing people before being killed by the police, but another version begins to emerge in certain Tunisian media, carried by family members.
According to the Marseille prosecutor, Nicolas Bessone, the investigation has not yet allowed to clearly establish the mobile of the aggressor. The man, who lived in a downtown hotel, had just been expelled for unpaid rents. Armed with two knives, he first attacked a person in his old accommodation, then to the hotel manager, his son, customers of a snack bar and finally passers-by.
Five injured were identified, including a seriously affected. The assailant, described as psychologically unstable and known for anti -Semitic remarks, was neutralized by the police after refusing to lay down his arms. The national anti -terrorist prosecution (PNAT) did not enter the file, it is, in any case, the version widely relayed by the French media. Distantly dismissing the thesis of an attack.
The story of the family: “a voluntary execution”
In several Tunisian media, the family of the deceased has a very different reading. His relatives claim that he had no connection with terrorism and was not radicalized. According to them, he found himself at the heart of a local conflict with an “Algerian clan” after his expulsion of accommodation. The man, they insist, would have tried to defend himself before the situation degenerates.
His relatives accuse the French police forces of having “voluntarily killed” him, believing that the police could have controlled him differently. This version, relayed in Tunisia, calls into question the dominant story in France and risks fueling the controversy.
For the time being, the gap is clear between the official French reading and the perception of the Tunisian family. On the one hand, the authorities speak of an unstable, violent and dangerous individual, unrelated to terrorism but having multiplied the attacks. On the other, the relatives of the deceased denounce a police blunder against the backdrop of community tensions.
French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau is expected in Marseille to follow the progress of the investigation. The results of the investigations – especially on the psychological profile of the suspect and the precise circumstances of the police intervention – should shed light on the gray areas.
