The two victims are in a serious condition but their lives are not in danger, according to the police spokesperson. Police had previously said there were four people wounded in the attack
Not long after the attack, a suspect was arrested near Place de la Bastille, in Paris’s 11th district, but the person was not immediately identified by police. French prosecutors have opened up a terror investigation.
Two suspects are being held by police, Jean-François Ricard, the national anti-terror prosecutor, said on Friday afternoon.
“The main perpetrator has been arrested and is currently in police custody, the second individual was placed in custody for his relations with the main perpetrator,” Ricard said.
The two victims were on a cigarette break at the time when they were attacked, he added. The victims are employees of French documentary production company Premières Lignes, the firm’s founder Paul Moreira told BFM TV.
Moreira said it “all happened very quickly” and that “a few blows were given to the two people in front of the office.” Moreira said the victims were attacked with a “sort of cleaver.”
Annie Hidalgo, mayor of Paris, tweeted a statement Friday condemning the attack.
“I condemn in the strongest possible terms the despicable terrorist attack that took place in front of Charlie Hebdo’s former premises. I would like to offer my full support to the victims, their families and colleagues. Thank you to the forces of law and order and to the rescue services mobilized on the spot,” she wrote.
“Through this highly symbolic place, it is once again freedom of expression that is targeted,” Hidalgo added.
“We must remain vigilant and mobilized to defend this pillar of our Republic and protect our citizens.”
Director of Premières Lignes Luc Hermann said on France Info TV: “We’re journalists. Our job is to inform, not to get attacked like this morning.” He criticized what he described as a “total absence of protection of this building since the attacks on Charlie Hebdo.”
Charlie Hebdo offered its “support and solidarity” to their former neighbors and colleagues of Premieres Lignes, and “to those affected by this heinous attack,” in a statement on Facebook.
The suspects in the trial are accused of having provided logistical support to the perpetrators — brothers Said and Chérif Kouachi, and their accomplice Amedy Coulibaly — and face charges of participating in a terrorist criminal association.
A total of 17 people were killed in the 2015 attacks, which took place in the French capital over three days.
Twelve of those were murdered when the Kouachi brothers forced their way into the Charlie Hebdo building and opened fire during its editorial meeting on January 7.
The victims included the magazine’s editor, Stephane “Charb” Charbonnier, several cartoonists and columnists, and a protection officer assigned to protect Charb, who had been the target of threats over the magazine’s publication, in 2006, of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed.
The following day, January 8, policewoman Clarissa Jean-Philippe was shot dead by Coulibaly in the southern Paris suburb of Montrouge.
On January 9, Coulibaly took several people hostage at a kosher superrmarket in the eastern Paris suburb of Porte de Vincennes. Four hostages were killed. Coulibaly was killed by police when they moved in to end the siege and rescue 15 other hostages.
The Kouachi brothers were shot dead by police in a separate operation in Dammartin-en-Goele, northeast of Paris, the same day.
To mark the start of the trial earlier this month, Charlie Hebdo republished the controversial cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed, along with a tribute to the employees who lost their lives in 2015.
In a statement, the magazine described the cartoons as “part of history, and one cannot rewrite history, neither can it be erased.”
A media group affiliated with al Qaeda had recently released a statement encouraging attacks on France, according to Site Intel and the Counter Extremism Project.
According to Site Intel, al-Qaeda’s English edition of its “One Ummah” magazine, published by the terror group’s as-Sahab Media Foundation on September 11, threatened the Charlie Hebdo staff and said the 2015 attack was not a “one-off incident.”
It is unclear if Friday’s attack is connected to the al Qaeda threat. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.
Gaëlle Fournier in Paris and Niamh Kennedy in London contributed to this report.