Timeline of extremist attacks in France in recent years

A look at some of the extremist attacks in the country

The attack in Nice on Thursday follows a spate of Islamic extremist violence in France in recent years. Here is a look at some of those attacks:

— Oct. 16, 2020: History teacher Samuel Paty is decapitated in the Paris suburbs. He had previously showed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in a class on freedom of expression. The attacker, Moscow-born Chechen refugee Abdullakh Anzorov, 18, was shot dead by police.

— Sept. 25, 2020: Two people are injured in a stabbing outside the former headquarters of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris. A Pakistani man was arrested and handed terrorism charges.

— March 2018: A French-Moroccan armed man opens fire on police officers and took hostages in a supermarket before being shot dead by police in southern France.

— June 1, 2017: An Algerian man wielding a hammer attacks police officers patrolling in front of Notre Dame Cathedral. He had declared his allegiance to the Islamic State.

— April 20, 2017: A gunman shoots and kills a police officer on Paris' Champs-Elysees in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group.

— March 18, 2017: A man wounds a police officer with a revolver loaded with birdshot, then attacks soldiers at Paris' Orly Airport while brandishing a revolver and yelling that he wanted to kill and then die for Allah.

— Feb. 3, 2017: A machete-wielding Egyptian man shouting “Allahu akbar!” attacks French soldiers guarding the Louvre Museum in Paris, slightly injuring one of them.

— July 26, 2016: An 85-year-old priest, Father Jacques Hamel, is murdered in Rouen by two 19-year-old Islamic extremists who slit his throat as he celebrated Mass.

— July 14, 2016: A man drives a truck into Bastille Day revelers in Nice, killing 86. The Islamic State claimed responsibility

— Nov. 13, 2015: Islamic State-linked extremists attack the Bataclan concert hall, France's national sports stadium and other sites across Paris, killing 130 people.

— Jan. 7-9, 2015: Attacks on the Paris offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and on a kosher grocery leave 17 dead. Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula claims responsibility, in revenge for Charlie Hebdo's depictions of the Prophet Muhammad.

— March 2012: A gunman claiming links to al-Qaida kills three Jewish schoolchildren, a rabbi and three paratroopers in Toulouse, southern France.

— Nov. 2, 2011: The offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris are firebombed after the satirical magazine runs a cover featuring a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad. No one is injured.

Also read: Proud to provoke Islamists, despite violence: Charlie Hebdo