Brahim Aouissaoui was born in 1999 near Sfax, Tunisia, and grew up in modest circumstances. Little is known about his childhood in detail, but neighbors and acquaintances later described him as a mechanic and occasional laborer who often took odd jobs. Before leaving Tunisia, there were no widely reported signs of radicalization or serious violence in his behavior.

In September 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Aouissaoui illegally crossed the Mediterranean and arrived on Lampedusa, Italy, where he was placed in quarantine for 20 days. Italian authorities issued him an expulsion order requiring him to leave by 9 October 2020, but no measures were taken to enforce his departure. Instead of leaving, he traveled to Bari, then continued onward into France. His arrival in Nice took place on 28 October 2020.

On the morning of 29 October 2020, at approximately 8:30 a.m. CET, Brahim Aouissaoui entered the Notre-Dame de Nice, a Roman Catholic basilica located on Avenue Jean Médecin in central Nice, France. Armed with a knife, he began a brutal assault inside the church.

His first victim was a 60-year-old woman who was in the basilica praying; she was attacked with such ferocity that her throat was deeply cut in what authorities described as an attempted decapitation. He then turned on the 55-year-old male sexton of the church, fatally stabbing him in the throat. A third victim, a 44-year-old Brazilian-born Frenchwoman, was stabbed multiple times and managed to escape the basilica but collapsed and died in a nearby café.

The attack lasted roughly 28 minutes, during which Aouissaoui repeatedly shouted “Allahu Akbar.” Police responded quickly, tasing him before firing 14 shots when he continued to threaten them with his weapon. Despite his serious injuries, he was taken alive and hospitalized. At the time of his arrest, he was found in possession of a Quran, three knives, and two cell phones.

The murders were immediately declared a terrorist attack by both French President Emmanuel Macron and Nice mayor Christian Estrosi, who attributed it to Islamic extremism. The killings came just two weeks after the beheading of Samuel Paty, a schoolteacher in Paris, which had already inflamed tensions across France and drawn international condemnation and protest.

The Notre-Dame attack reinforced fears of further jihadist violence inside France, particularly following Macron’s defense of secularism and freedom of expression after the Paty case. Security forces were quickly deployed across the nation to guard churches and schools, while French leaders vowed to intensify the fight against extremist ideology.

On 26 February 2025, after nearly five years in custody and trial proceedings, Brahim Aouissaoui was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.