© Francois Guillot / AFP / Getty Images / May 25, 2013Police investigators and forensic experts work at the site where a man armed with a knife or box cutter attacked a French soldier patrolling a subway station on Saturday, stabbing him in the neck
French anti-terrorist investigators are hunting for a man who stabbed a soldier in the throat at a busy Paris shopping and transport center.
Detectives are also examining whether there is a link between the attack and the killing of a British soldier who was hacked to death in London on Wednesday.
The 23-year-old French soldier, Pfc. Cedric Cordier, was patrolling the busy underground corridors beneath the La Defense arch in the French capital's business district with two other soldiers when an attacker approached him from behind shortly before 6 p.m. on Saturday, authorities said. They said Cordier was stabbed in the neck with a knife or cutter that narrowly missed his carotid artery.
The soldier, a member of the Gap 4th Rifle Regiment, was taken to a hospital, where doctors said his life was not in danger. The attacker, who fled into a nearby shopping center, was described as of North African appearance and around 30 years old. He was still being sought on Sunday.
The area where the attack occurred adjoins the busy La Defense train station, and is monitored by video cameras run by the city transport network. Investigators are now going through footage from the cameras.
French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, who visited Cordier in the hospital a few hours after Saturday's attack, said it was clear the victim was targeted because he was a soldier. Le Drian and Interior Minister Manuel Valls issued a joint statement condemning what they described as a "cowardly attack" on the soldier.
Comment: While you are all pondering the blatant efforts by French and British 'intelligence' agencies to manipulate you, ponder this:
Police state now! Monitoring Internet chatter the 'vital frontline in war against popular protest movements'
and this:
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