ISIL-related terror attacks in France

ISIL-related terror attacks in France refers to the terrorist activity of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in France, including attacks committed by ISIL-inspired lone wolves. The French military operation Opération Sentinelle has been ongoing in France since the January 2015 Île-de-France attacks.

Background
Prior to the attacks, the 2005 French riots occurred. They have been controversially interpreted, mostly by the foreign press, as an illustration of the difficulty of integrating Muslims in France, and smaller scale riots have been occurring throughout the 1980s and 1990s, first in Vaulx-en-Velin in 1979, and in Vénissieux in 1981, 1983, 1990 and 1999.

According to The Guardian, eight attacks occurred in France during the eighteen months from January 2015 to July 2016, including the January 2015 Île-de-France attacks (which killed 17 people), the November 2015 Paris attacks (which killed 130), and the July 2016 Nice truck attack (which killed 86). Reportedly, ISIL has called on its supporters for a coordinated wave of attacks in European countries.

2015
On 26 June 2015, an attacker decapitated one person. He then blew up a gas canister in a factory in Saint-Quentin-Fallavier, near Lyon, injuring two.

On 21 August 2015, in the 2015 Thalys train attack, a man threatened passengers with an AKM assault rifle on a Thalys train between Amsterdam and Paris. One passenger was shot in the neck with a pistol when the rifle jammed. Two United States military personnel and other passengers intervened and overcame the attacker. One of them was cut in the struggle.

From 13 November 2015 to 14 November 2015, a series of coordinated attacks began over about 35 minutes at six locations in central Paris. The first shooting attack occurred in a restaurant and a bar in the 10th arrondissement of Paris. There was shooting and a bomb detonated at Bataclan theatre in the 11th arrondissement during a rock concert. Approximately 100 hostages were then taken and overall 89 were killed there. Other bombings took place outside the Stade de France stadium in the suburb of Saint-Denis during a football match between France and Germany. Three days later, in Saint-Denis, a police raid-turned-shootout between at least 100 French police officers and soldiers and suspected members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant occurred, killing three suspects and injuring five police officers.

2016
On 1 January 2016, a 29-year-old Frenchman of Tunisian descent rammed over a civilian and a guard in an entrance of a mosque in Valence, Drôme, reportedly while chanting, "Allahu Akbar!" He then put his car into reverse to try to ram the soldiers again who fired warning shots and then fired to disable the driver. The driver said he wanted to kill troops because "troops killed people" and that he wanted to be killed by the troops.

On 7 January 2016, an asylum seeker shouted "Allahu Akbar!" outside a police station in Goutte d'Or, near Montmartre, where police shot and killed him while a passerby was shot. Reports say he was wielding a knife and fake suicide vest.

On 11 January 2016, a 15-year-old Turkish boy attacked a teacher from a Jewish school in Marseilles with a machete, apparently attempting to decapitate him. The student told police that he had committed the act "in the name of Allah and ISIS".

On 27 May 2016, a French military person was left in a "serious condition" after being attacked with knives in Saint-Julien-du-Puy (Tarn). The military was approached by two men who "have criticized the French bombing in Syria." He was then beaten with fists and beaten cutter.

On 13 June 2016, in the 2016 Magnanville stabbing, a police officer and his wife, a police secretary, were stabbed to death in their home in Magnanville, France, located about 55 km west of Paris, by a man convicted in 2013 of associating with a group planning terrorist acts. Amaq News Agency, an online outlet said to be linked to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), said that a source had claimed that ISIL was behind the attack.

On the evening of 14 July 2016, in the 2016 Nice attack, a 19 tonne cargo truck was deliberately driven into crowds celebrating Bastille Day on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France, resulting in the death of 86 people and injuring 434. On 16 July, two agencies linked to Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack.

On 26 July 2016, in the 2016 Normandy church attack, two assailants killed a priest and seriously wounded a woman in a church in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray. The two assailants were killed by French Special Forces. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack.

2017
On 3 February 2017, in the 2017 Louvre machete attack, an Egyptian national in France on a tourist visa was shot as he rushed a group of French soldiers guarding a principal entrance to the Louvre Museum in Paris, France, attacking and injuring one soldier with a machete. The soldiers were patrolling the Museum as part of Opération Sentinelle, guarding the Carrousel du Louvre. Immediately after his arrest, the suspect told authorities that he was carrying spray paint in order to deface the museum's artwork, an act that he regarded as a "symbolic" attack on France.

On 18 March 2017, in the March 2017 Île-de-France attacks, a pair of terrorist attacks by the same individual occurred in Garges-lès-Gonesse, an outer suburb of Paris, and Orly Airport near Paris. The attacker, a 39-year-old man identified as Ziyed Ben Belgacem, was shot dead after attempting to seize a weapon from a soldier patrolling the airport under Opération Sentinelle.

On 20 April 2017, in the 2017 shooting of Paris police officers, three police officers were shot by an attacker wielding an AK-47 rifle on the Champs-Élysées, a shopping boulevard in Paris, France. One officer was killed and two others, along with a female tourist, were seriously wounded. The attacker was then shot dead by police. ISIL claimed responsibility.

On 6 June 2017, in the 2017 Notre Dame attack, a lone attacker assaulted a police officer at Notre-Dame de Paris. The officer and the attacker, a 40-year-old Algerian graduate student who had left a video, pledging allegiance to ISIL, were both injured.