'Backpack hero' says his Catholic faith gave him the strength to fight ... trends now

The three-year-old British girl who was stabbed by the French playground knifeman on Thursday is out of surgery and watching television, France's president Emmanuel Macron has confirmed.

During a meeting with rescue workers in Annecy, Macron said of young Ettie Turner: 'She is watching TV and [the attack] is just a bad memory already.

'Doctors are optimistic,' he added, though he said caution was still required.

Meanwhile, the 'backpack hero' who chased away Abdelmasih Hanoun, 31, has said his Catholic faith gave him the strength to fight the attacker.

Henri d'Ansleme, 24, told journalists he was undertaking a walking tour of France's cathedrals when he came across a playground in Annecy and saw the man attack children in a stroller as their mother desperately tried to shield them.

Video footage shows him trying to block the assailant with one of his two backpacks, pursuing the man into the playground and throwing one of his bags at the attacker. 

Dubbed 'the backpack hero' (le héros au sac a dos) by media, the management and philosophy student suggested it was God's will he was there to intervene.

'All I know is that I was not there by chance. On my journey to the cathedrals I crossed paths with this man and I have acted instinctively. It was unthinkable to do nothing,' the philosophy and management student told CNEWS.

Henri's comments came as it emerged the knifeman responsible for the savage attack on the young children was seen lurking around the playground where it happened 'every day for two months beforehand'.

The disturbing details about the build-up to Thursday's atrocity came as self-styled Syrian-Christian Hanoun was remanded in custody while facing multiple attempted murder charges.

Meanwhile, Macron visited the alpine town on Friday and shook hands with Henri to thank him for his bravery.

The devout Catholic said he had felt a strong force inside him pushing him to act.

'I let myself be guided by providence and the Virgin Mary. I said my adieu. They would decide what would happen,' he said.

Henri said other young people had also pursued the attacker. 'We tried to scare him and make clear he could not do what he wanted,' he said. 

Henri shied away from the 'hero' label. He said he 'tried to act as all French people should act, or would act.' 

'In that moment, you unplug your brain and react a bit like an animal by instinct,' he told broadcaster BFMTV. 'It was impossible for me to witness that without reacting.'

'I am far from alone in having reacted. Many other people around started, like me, to run after him to try to scare him, push him away. And other people immediately went over to the children to take care of the injured.'

'I remember there was also a municipal worker who arrived from the right with a large plastic shovel to try to hit him,' Henri said.

Henri's father François said that in phone conversation after the attack, 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.'

'In short, he was possessed by who knows what, but possessed by folly, that's certain,' the father told the Associated Press.

Henri's father said he believed that his son's dogged pursuit helped dissuade the attacker from stabbing more victims before police wrestled him to the ground.

'He took a lot of risks when he wasn't armed, with just his backpacks,' the father said.

'He didn't stop running after him for many minutes, to stop him from coming back and massacring the kids even more. I think he prevented carnage by scaring him off. Really very courageous.'

François asked that their last name not be published, expressing concerns about their family being thrust suddenly and inadvertently into the public eye at a time of shock and outrage in France provoked by the viciousness of Thursday's attack and the helplessness of its young victims.

He said he did show the disturbing video of the attack to his other children and his wife, and added that he and his wife had trouble sleeping even after learning that Henri was safe. 'We thanked providence and his guardian angels,' he said.

Asked about the suggestion that attacker may have been Christian, Henri said it made no sense.

The attacker had screamed 'in the name of Jesus Christ' and clinched onto a necklace with a crucifix as he launched his 'abominable' rampage in Annecy, a tourist hotspot in southeastern France.

Hanoun first targeted two French cousins named as Ennio and Alba, both two, and then attacked Ettie Turner, a three-year-old British girl on holiday with her parents, and Peter, a 22-month-old Dutch baby, before he was chased by locals and arrested.

Henri said: 'It is profoundly unchristian to attack the vulnerable. The entire Christian civilisation on which our country is built is a knightly message to defend widows and orphans. I think that, on the contrary, something very bad inhabited him.'

The student said he had to revisit the gruesome details of the attack during a three-hour statement to police on Thursday. 'I now have all these horrible images in my head. I need to try and turn that into something positive,' he said.

He would continue his months-long walking tour and hoped to show social media followers 'how the beauty of the cathedrals can nourish us and help us do the right thing'. 'Because of these events, I will be able to reach more people. I thank heaven,' he told BFM television.

It emerged today that despite being a failed asylum seeker who faced deportation, Hanoun - the assailant - was left to sleep rough in the Alpine city of Annecy.

'He'd rest in a cardboard box at night, go swimming in Lake Annecy first thing in the morning, and then spent the day in the park,' said an investigating source.

'Parents and other people around the playground were used to seeing him sitting on a bench. He was often muttering or singing to himself, and became aggressive if anyone else tried to sit on the bench.'

Another witness who works on a lake pontoon told the Dauphiné Libéré news outlet that he saw Hanoun 'every day for the two months preceding the attack.

'He was dressed in black - black backpack, dark glasses, bearded, and he wore a headdress to protect him from the sun – it could be a t-shirt, this wasn't a religious sign,' the source said.

Earlier today, horrified residents gathered at the French playground where four preschool children were stabbed by a Syrian refugee, with one local man weeping uncontrollably and screaming 'why was I not here yesterday'.

Devastated locals congregated in the town of Annecy to lay floral tributes and light candles for the four victims, including a three-year-old British girl, who were stabbed by Abdalmash Hanoun, 31, in a savage attack.

One local resident, Salih Ismajl, was overcome with emotion as he stood in front of the playground today and screamed: 'Don't touch the kids! Don't touch the kids! Why was I not here yesterday!? Why was I not here?'

Today, French President Macron and his wife Brigitte visited Ettie's family as well as the relatives of Ennio and Alba at the University Hospital in Grenoble, who have been left traumatised by yesterday's savage attack.

The victims' families, witnesses and locals in Annecy have been left reeling from the attack. Standing next to the scene of the brutal attack today, local resident Leo, 21, said: 'We feel rage, incomprehension. I have the impression with how horrible it was. It affects us all.

'We must all think about all these children, all these parents, who went through that yesterday.'

Distressing video shows Hanoun, a self-professed Christian, running into the small playground and repeatedly stabbing a toddler in his pram while his screaming mother tried to protect him from the attack. 

Further dramatic footage shows the recently divorced Hanoun later being chased across the park by locals and cops before he was shot by a police officer and pinned to the ground. 

The attack left the four children with serious stab injuries and medics at Grenoble hospital today said that Ennio and Albia remain in a 'critical' condition. 

Three-year-old Briton Ettie Turner, who is at the same hospital, is in a 'stable' condition as is Peter after being transferred to a specialist medical unit in Geneva.

Macron spent almost two hours with the three young victims at the hospital in Grenoble and their parents, while also speaking to the medics treating them. The French president spoke to Ettie's parents, a source said.

A source close to the Elysee Palace told MailOnline: 'The president spoke to the parents of the young English girl. The president's wife Brigitte Macron was there as well.

'They spoke with her family and to the families of the French children who were injured. The president was in a room with parents for quite a long time.'

Macron and Brigitte are now travelling an hour-and-a-half north to Annecy from Grenoble in a motorcade to meet with other victims, their families and the people who came to their aid following the attack which is not being treated as terror-related. 

Investigators are still trying to understand what Hanoun's motives were for the onslaught. Annecy Prosecutor Line Bonnet-Mathis said in a tweet she was extending the suspect's custody for further interrogation.

Horrified witnesses said mothers ran past them screaming 'run, run' in the aftermath of the frenzied attack, which was condemned by Macron as 'absolute cowardice'. 

Witnesses said the knifeman, who was rejected for asylum in France four days before the onslaught, had begun attacking the preschool children while they were playing at a small playground

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