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'Train heroes' get French award for bravery

August 24, 2015

The four men were invited to Paris' Elysee Palace to receive the Legion of Honor after Friday's thwarted attack on an Amsterdam to Paris train. An armed man moved through several packed carriages, threatening passengers.

https://p.dw.com/p/1GKRD
The four "train heroes" meet the French president
Image: Reuters/M. Euler

Three Americans and a Briton were awarded France's highest honor on Monday after they thwarted a gun attack on a high-speed Thalys train from Amsterdam to Paris.

The four tourists went to the Elysee Palace in Paris to be decorated with the Legion of Honor (Ordre national de la Legion d'honneur) from President Francois Hollande. The accolade is only awarded in cases of exceptional merit in military or civilian life in the service of France.

“"Your heroism is a source of inspiration,"” Hollande told the men, thanking them for overpowering the gunman, who threatened "“real carnage"” as he moved through the Thalys service on Friday night with an assault rifle strapped to his bare chest.

The men held the assailant down and knocked him unconscious until the train arrived at the next station.

Hollande added that the men showed that “"faced with terror, we have the power to resist. You also gave a lesson in courage, in will and thus in hope.”"

A media conference at the US embassy in Paris on Sunday.
The men who overpowered a gunman on a high-speed train said the drama 'hasn't really sunk in'Image: T. Samson/AFP/Getty Images

US Airman Spencer Stone, National Guardsman Alex Skarlatos and their friend Anthony Sadler took action, along with British businessman Chris Norman, as the train traveled through Belgium with more than 550 passengers on board.

Two people - including Stone - were injured as they attempted to overpower the attacker. The four men are credited with saving many lives by preventing a much bigger assault. It is also believed the gunman's weapon may have jammed.

In a media conference on Sunday at the US embassy in Paris, Stone said another man, who is French, whose name has not been disclosed, "deserves a lot of the credit," because he was the first one to try to stop the gunman.

Thalys-Anschlag Polizei
Security checks were heightened in response to the failed attackImage: picture-alliance/dpa/N. Maeterlinck

Belgium has ordered patrols on international trains traveling through the country and stepped up baggage checks following the incident.

France's counterterrorism police are still interrogating 26-year-old Moroccan Ayoub El-Khazzani outside Paris.

His lawyer has rejected terrorism allegations, saying his client was "dumbfounded" by being described as an Islamist militant as he only intended to rob people on board the train.

The Legion of Honor was introduced by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802.

mm/msh (AFP, AP)