The Louvre Museum reopens, the condition of the assailant improves

The Louvre museum in Paris reopened its doors to tourists who came in numbers on Saturday morning after a machete attack on soldiers by a man seriously injured by a bullet but whose health is improving .
If he is safe, the assailant, who is a 29-year-old Egyptian resident in the United Arab Emirates, is intubated and unable to communicate. He can not be questioned by investigators, according to a source close to the investigation.
As soon as the doors opened, tourists flocked to the entrances to the museum, which had been closed Friday after the attack, an AFP journalist said.
Two long queues, mainly composed of Chinese visitors, were visible in the very tourist gallery of the Carrousel, in the basement, where the soldiers were assaulted by a man shouting “Allah Akbar” (God is The largest in Arabic).
One of the entrances to the Carrousel, where the attack took place, however remained closed Saturday, it was learned from the museum.

Police officers armed with machine-guns patrolled among the tourists who, before arriving at the entrance of the museum proper, had to undergo an additional control of the bags.
“The security measures we are used to in Turkey,” said Ali Tali, a Turkish tourist, accompanied by his wife. Present Friday in the gallery at the time of the attack, this forty-year-old said “not worried”.
At the outside entrance, on the Pyramid side, another visitor, Elena Lordugen, is a little less reassured: “I am quite concerned to come today, but since we could not visit the museum yesterday, we had when Even decided to return, “said the 28-year-old Russian, living in Germany.

“For our brothers in Syria”
On Friday the aggressor, armed with two 40 cm machetes, rushed on a patrol of four soldiers shouting “Allah Akbar”. He slightly injured the scalp a first soldier, before jumping onto another, which fell, according to the prosecutor of the Republic of Paris, François Molins.
After attempting to repel the assailant for the first time without using his weapon, a second soldier opened fire four times.
The investigators are still trying to formally establish the identity of this man, unknown to the police.
The investigations carried out on his mobile phone, on European visa files and during a search in an apartment of the very chic VIIIth arrondissement of Paris lead to a 29-year-old Egyptian, residing in the United Arab Emirates, legally entered France on 26 January by a flight from Dubai, revealed Friday evening François Molins.
His motives are not yet known, but it is “an act whose terrorist character is hardly doubtful,” according to President François Hollande.
“The version of the French government is not logical. It is 1m65 and it attacked four guards? “, Surprised the father of the alleged assailant, Reda El-Hamahmy, a retired police general who lives in Egypt and has no news of his Son since Friday.
Abdallah El-Hamahmy is married and his wife, pregnant, is in Saudi Arabia with their seven-month-old son, according to her father.
Investigators, who are questioning the help of possible accomplices, also look at tweets posted in Arabic on the account of Abdallah El Hamahmy. A dozen messages were posted a few minutes before the attack.
One can read “In the name of Allah … for our brothers in Syria and the fighters” and, a minute later, a tweet in which he seems to lend his support to the jihadists of the Islamic State group.
The Islamic state, which is losing ground in Iraq and Syria where it proclaimed a caliphate in 2014, continues to threaten France with retaliation for its participation in the international military coalition in both countries.
France was hit in 2015 and 2016 by a series of jihadist attacks that left 238 dead and hundreds injured. Several of these attacks targeted soldiers or policemen.