The Cour d’assises spéciale in Paris on Monday sentenced Michaël Chiolo to a life term without the possibility of parole for the 2019 knife attack on two guards at the Condé-sur-Sarthe prison in north-western France. The penalty, known as “perpétuité incompressible”, is the harshest available under French law and is currently applied to only a handful of inmates, including Salah Abdeslam, one of the November 2015 Paris attackers. Chiolo, a 33-year-old inmate who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State after his radicalisation in prison, used ceramic knives smuggled in by his visiting partner on 5 March 2019. The couple wounded the officers and then barricaded themselves for nearly ten hours in a family-visiting unit before police commandos stormed the site, killing Chiolo’s companion and wounding him. After five weeks of trial, the court also imposed a separate life sentence, with a 30-year minimum period, on Abdelaziz Fahd for complicity in attempted murder, while acquitting another defendant of terror-related conspiracy. The remaining accused received prison sentences of up to 20 years. All defendants have ten days to appeal.