Four young chil­dren stabbed in a play­ground in the French Alps are no longer in life-threat­en­ing con­di­tion but re­main hos­pi­tal­ized, the re­gion­al pros­e­cu­tor said Sat­ur­day, as the sus­pect­ed at­tack­er was hand­ed pre­lim­i­nary charges of at­tempt­ed mur­der.

The vic­tims came from mul­ti­ple coun­tries, and the im­pact from the un­usu­al­ly sav­age and in­com­pre­hen­si­ble at­tack Thurs­day re­ver­ber­at­ed across France and be­yond. The chil­dren who were stabbed, be­tween 22 months and 3 years old, were in hos­pi­tals in France and Switzer­land.

The sus­pect, a 31-year-old Syr­i­an refugee with per­ma­nent Swedish res­i­den­cy, has a 3-year-old daugh­ter liv­ing in Swe­den, re­gion­al pros­e­cu­tor Line Bon­net-Math­is told re­porters Sat­ur­day. Wit­ness­es told in­ves­ti­ga­tors that the sus­pect men­tioned his daugh­ter, his wife and Je­sus Christ dur­ing the at­tack Thurs­day tar­get­ing a play­ground in the lake­side town of An­necy.

Po­lice de­tained the sus­pect in the park in the town of An­necy af­ter by­standers — no­tably, a Catholic pil­grim who re­peat­ed­ly swung at the at­tack­er with his back­pack — sought to de­ter him.

The sus­pect­ed at­tack­er, whose name was not re­leased, was pre­sent­ed to in­ves­ti­gat­ing judges in An­necy on Sat­ur­day and giv­en charges of at­tempt­ed mur­der and armed re­sis­tance, Bon­net-Math­is said. He is in cus­tody pend­ing fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

The sus­pect re­fused to talk to in­ves­ti­ga­tors and was ex­am­ined by a psy­chi­a­trist and oth­er doc­tors who deemed him fit to face charges, the pros­e­cu­tor said. She said that the mo­tive re­mained un­clear, but it didn’t ap­pear to be ter­ror­ism re­lat­ed.

The sus­pect­ed at­tack­er wore a cross and car­ried two Chris­t­ian im­ages with him at the time of the at­tack, the pros­e­cu­tor said. He al­so had 480 eu­ros in cash with him and a Swedish dri­ver’s li­cense and had been sleep­ing in the com­mon area of an An­necy apart­ment build­ing.

He had trav­elled from Swe­den to Italy and Switzer­land be­fore com­ing to France last Oc­to­ber, and French po­lice are co­or­di­nat­ing with col­leagues in those coun­tries to learn more about his tra­jec­to­ry, said Damien De­la­by, di­rec­tor of the re­gion­al ju­di­cial po­lice.

The child vic­tims were two French 2-year-old cousins, a boy and a girl, who were in the play­ground with their grand­moth­er when the as­sailant ap­peared; a British 3-year-old girl vis­it­ing An­necy with her par­ents; and a 22-month-old Dutch girl, ac­cord­ing to the pros­e­cu­tor.

French Pres­i­dent Em­manuel Macron vis­it­ed the vic­tims and their fam­i­lies, first re­spon­ders and wit­ness­es Fri­day. Macron said doc­tors were “very con­fi­dent” about the con­di­tions of the two cousins, who were the most crit­i­cal­ly in­jured.

The wound­ed British girl “is awake, she’s watch­ing tele­vi­sion,” Macron added. The Dutch girl al­so has im­proved, and a crit­i­cal­ly in­jured adult — who was both knifed and wound­ed by a shot that po­lice fired as they de­tained the sus­pect­ed at­tack­er — is re­gain­ing con­scious­ness, Macron said.

The se­ri­ous­ly in­jured adult, a Por­tuguese man, was wound­ed try­ing to stop the at­tack­er from flee­ing po­lice. Por­tu­gal’s for­eign min­istry said he is “now out of dan­ger.”

In a state­ment Sat­ur­day, Por­tuguese Pres­i­dent Marce­lo Re­be­lo de Sousa thanked the man, Manuel Ponte, for his brav­ery.

The sec­ond in­jured adult was dis­charged from a hos­pi­tal, his left el­bow ban­daged.

The pil­grim dubbed “the hero with the back­pack,” a 24-year-old French­man named Hen­ri, is on a walk­ing and hitch­hik­ing tour of France’s cathe­drals. He told French broad­cast­er BFMTV that he’d been set­ting off to an­oth­er abbey when the hor­ror un­fold­ed in front of him. The at­tack­er slashed at him, but Hen­ri held his ground and used a weighty back­pack he was car­ry­ing to swing at the as­sailant.

Hen­ri’s fa­ther told The As­so­ci­at­ed Press that his son “told me that the Syr­i­an was in­co­her­ent, say­ing lots of strange things in dif­fer­ent lan­guages, in­vok­ing his fa­ther, his moth­er, all the Gods.”

The sus­pect’s pro­file fu­elled re­newed crit­i­cism from far-right and con­ser­v­a­tive politi­cians about French mi­gra­tion poli­cies. But au­thor­i­ties not­ed that the sus­pect en­tered France legal­ly, be­cause he has per­ma­nent res­i­den­cy sta­tus in Swe­den. Swe­den and France are both mem­bers of the EU and Eu­rope’s bor­der-free trav­el zone.

He ap­plied for cit­i­zen­ship in Swe­den in 2017 and 2018 but was de­nied, ac­cord­ing to the Swedish Mi­gra­tion Agency. Swe­den’s TV4 tele­vi­sion, cit­ing the cit­i­zen­ship re­fusal doc­u­ment, re­port­ed that he was de­nied be­cause he had served in the Syr­i­an army.

He ap­plied for asy­lum in France last year and was re­fused a few days be­fore the at­tack, on the grounds that he had al­ready won asy­lum in Swe­den in 2013, the French in­te­ri­or min­is­ter said.

An­necy is plan­ning a pub­lic gath­er­ing at the site of the at­tack on Sun­day in sup­port of the vic­tims. —PARIS (AP)  

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Sto­ry by NICO­LAS VAUX-MON­TAG­NY and AN­GELA CHARL­TON | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Nico­las Vaux-Mon­tag­ny re­port­ed from Ly­on, France. Karl Rit­ter in Stock­holm and He­le­na Alves in Lis­bon, Por­tu­gal con­tributed.