[1/5]French police and firefighters secure the area after a teacher was killed and several people injured in a knife attack at the Lycee Gambetta-Carnot high school in Arras, northern France, on October 13, 2023. Portal/Pascal Rossignol acquires license rights
ARRAS, Oct 13 (Portal) – A knifeman fatally stabbed a teacher and injured another in an attack on a school in the northern French town of Arras on Friday. The investigation was handed over to the anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office.
The Pas-de-Calais regional authority said the suspected attacker had been arrested but urged residents to avoid Arras city center.
The suspect was a Russian-born Chechen and a former student of Lycee Gambetta High School where the attack took place, a police source said.
He was on a government watchlist of people considered a potential security risk, the police source added. The “Fiche S” contains thousands of names and only a small number are actively monitored.
Police could not confirm local media reports that he shouted “Allahu Akbar.” BFM TV reported that he was around 20 years old.
“We are all in shock,” said philosophy teacher Martin Doussau, who was pursued by the attacker but managed to escape unharmed after locking himself in a room.
Doussau said he saw the attacker attack the school cook in the courtyard during a break between two classes before the attacker approached him.
“He was looking for a history teacher,” Doussau told Portal. “That makes me think that this wasn’t about a personal issue or about negotiating a personal vendetta with a teacher.”
Regional newspaper La Voix du Nord reported the teacher was killed as he tried to stop the attacker from causing harm.
INCREASED SAFETY
A second police source said there was no immediate evidence of a connection between the attack and the conflict between Israel and the Hamas movement.
President Emmanuel Macron is on his way to Arras, his office said. In a nationwide address a day earlier, Macron called on the French to remain united and not to publicize the Israel-Hamas conflict.
According to BFM TV, the person killed was a French teacher, while a sports teacher was stabbed and injured.
The students were locked in their classrooms, it said.
The alleged attacker’s brother was also arrested.
Arras is a city in the de-industrialized, ethnically diverse north of France, a region where the far right enjoys strong support.
Education Minister Gabriel Attal said security would be strengthened in schools across France.
France has been the target of a number of Islamist attacks over the years. The worst was a simultaneous attack by gunmen and suicide bombers on entertainment venues and cafes in Paris in November 2015.
In 2020, a teacher, Samuel Paty, was beheaded by a Chechen teenager seeking revenge for the use of cartoons mocking the Prophet Mohammad during a class on free speech.
Reporting by Layli Foroudi, Michel Rose, Charlotte Van Campenhout, Tassilo Hummel, Benoit van Overstraeten; Writing by Ingrid Melander; Edited by Richard Lough and Deborah Kyvrikosaios
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