Paris shooting suspect kept four left-wing figures' numbers on sticky note

Kévin Tessier, 39, was formally placed under investigation on charges including murder and attempted murder in connection with a terrorist enterprise, France's anti-terrorism prosecution office said Wednesday. During a search of his home, investigators turned up a sticky note carrying the names and mobile numbers of four public figures tied to the political left.

The note listed Green Party MPs Aymeric Caron and Sandrine Rousseau, France Unbowed MP David Guiraud and Assa Traoré, the activist known for leading campaigns against racism and police violence. According to the prosecution office, Tessier said he had lifted the numbers from a website publishing leaked data and described the four as "leftists".

Pressed on whether he meant to target them, he pushed back: "No, no, no, I had just taken the numbers but I had no project under way." Prosecutors said nothing else in the case file backs up the idea of a considered plan of violent action against the four. France Unbowed leader and presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon flagged the list on X, as did Green Party leader Marine Tondelier.

The case stems from an October shooting in a Paris suburb in which one person was killed and five injured. Prosecutors said the attack was carried out because of the victims' actual or supposed race, ethnicity, nation or religion — an aggravating circumstance under French law. Tessier admitted shooting "a black man who was walking alone in the street" and then two men "possibly of North African origin", and said he tried to shoot a woman wearing a veil but the gun jammed. Investigators recovered 128 bullet casings from various locations.

He also described approaching a girl he took for a veiled Black woman in the street: "I stopped in the middle of the road, ran towards her, and said to her, 'Go on, pray, my dear'." Told by police that the girl was 11 years old and seriously injured, he said he would "never have done that to a child" but showed no regret, adding: "It's too late anyway. Why regret it?"

Tessier rejects the terrorist label. "For me, it's about liberating my country. It has nothing to do with that. I'm acting for France," he said, adding that people should "open their eyes instead of burying their heads in the sand."