A teenager accused of stabbing a 39-year-old man to death in Southern France had already been arrested for another stabbing in May but had been released pending trial.
The 18-year-old, who was arrested and indicted on Saturday in Montpellier, is accused of stabbing a 39-year-old man in the commune of Clermont-l’Hérault last Thursday in the early morning near the local town hall.
Residents were alerted by shouting during the attack and discovered the body of the victim, who had been stabbed at least eleven times and died at the scene, Actu reports.
The alleged attacker was later identified by local gendarmes who used CCTV footage that showed the attack taking place and revealed the attacker stabbing the victim as he was already on the ground.
The motive behind the attack is unknown as investigators try to determine if the man was randomly attacked or if the pair knew each other beforehand. The teen told investigators he tried to help the man home as he was drunk but claimed he did not know the victim prior.
Local residents, however, claim that the attacker attempted to steal the backpack of the victim, pushing him to the floor before stabbing him repeatedly.
It was also revealed by a source close to the investigation that the teenager was arrested last May in connection to another stabbing attack but was subsequently released from custody into judicial supervision before his trial.
The murder comes as France has seen a rise in killings in recent years, with a report published last year noting that the murder rate in the country had nearly doubled between 2010 and 2020.
French criminologist Alain Bauer commented on the growing trend of homicides saying, “While we are rightly moved by the crisis of mass murders and violence that is returning to the United States, a similar movement that is not very visible, but more and more pronounced, is affecting France.”
“Behind this daily violence, masked by attacks or mass murders, what is being revealed before our eyes is a global social process of questioning a founding achievement of what makes a civilisation: the right to live,” he added.