The facts took place this morning around 9.30 am at the Cité Universitaire station in the French capital. According to the police, a man pushed the 52-year-old victim “violently” and “for no reason” onto the tracks of the urban RER train. The woman of Algerian origin managed to get up, but was unable to get away in time and was hit by a car. The victim died at the scene from her injuries.
The perpetrator, who fled after the incident, was arrested later in the day for shoplifting in a suburb of Paris. During his interrogation, he admitted that he had pushed the woman onto the tracks, the Paris prosecutor’s office reports. The surveillance footage of the incident confirms this. The man is now in pre-trial detention on suspicion of murder.
Police evacuated the station immediately after the incident. Traffic was partially interrupted for several hours and remained disrupted throughout the day. In a tweet, the RER announced around 6:30 p.m. that train traffic had been restored “on the entire line”.