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French Police Waiting to Question Would-be Assassin

Aired July 15, 2002 - 14:36   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: A man suspected of trying to kill French president Jacques Chirac is under psychiatric evaluation today. No one was hurt in yesterday's Bastille Day incident, but French police are chomping at the bit to talk to that gunman.

CNN's Diana Muriel joins us now live from Paris with more -- Diana.

DIANA MURIEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Kyra. The gunman was held at a secure psychiatric unit at one of the police hospitals here in Paris. We now believe he has been committed to that psychiatric unit. He poses a danger to himself and to others as an Agence France-Presse (ph) reports.

The gunman, 25-year-old Maxime Brunerie, was named by police. He was in the crowd at the Champs Elysees, watching the Bastille Day parade taking place. The president, Jacques Chirac, was just about 50 yards from where he was standing. He pulled out a rifle, we understand, from a brown guitar case that he was carrying, and aimed it at the president. One shot was fired before he was overcome by bystanders who were in the crowd.

Now, I spoke to one of the gentlemen who was in that crowd, who saw the gunman. He said that he been standing very, very close to him, and he had been looking around at the crowd because they had been extremely quiet. No one was applauding the Republican Guard, who were walking down the Champs Elysees, and he turned around to his fellows in the crowd to try and get them to applaud, and he saw the gunman, and this is what he told me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JACQUES WEBER, BYSTANDER (through translator): I saw a man who was looking very determined to shoot at the president. I heard a shot, and I understood he was firing. I took the gun barrel and pointed it to the sky, but he grabbed the butt of the gun and pulled it down towards him, aiming the barrel under his chin, as if to kill himself. I managed to get a hold of the butt of the gun in my right hand, and get it off him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MURIEL: Now, Mr. Weber was personally thanked by President Chirac for helping to overcome the gunman, and for his sanc wa (ph), for his cold blood in dealing with that very alarming situation. The police are treating this as an isolated incident, and not as a terrorist attack. It has not been referred to the anti-terrorism unit here in Paris. The suspect is -- has yet to be formally interviewed by the police, we understand, although he has made some comments to the police that have been leaking out through some of the sources here in Paris, some of the wire agencies.

He is reported to have said that he was trying to kill the president. He is also understood to be member of a radical far-right, extremist right-wing movement. He had links with the National Republican movement, which is a splinter group from the National Front, that party, of course, headed by Jean-Marie Le Pen, who was a presidential candidate against Jacques Chirac in the last presidential election this year. Jacques Chirac seemed not to be very much aware of this incident on the Champs Elysees yesterday. The parade continued uninterrupted, and the president speaking to journalists at the traditional interview that he gives after the Bastille Day celebration didn't even mention the incident, nor did he seem to mention it to guests who attended presidential palace for a reception after the main parade was over.

So, police yet to give more details of this gunman, although we know that his name is Maxime Brunerie. He is a 25-year-old who lives in a suburb in the southwest of Paris -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Diana Muriel, live from Paris. Thank you.

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