A teacher has been killed and two other people critically injured in a stabbing at a school in Arras, northern France.
Europe 1 reported that the suspected attacker, who has been arrested, was on a watchlist of people known to be a security risk in connection with radical Islamism. Local media reported that he was a former pupil at the Gambetta-Carnot school. A police source told Agence France-Presse he was from Russia’s mainly Muslim southern Caucasus region of Chechnya.
France’s anti-terrorism prosecution office said it would start an investigation, as the French president, Emmanuel Macron, arrived at the scene mid-afternoon.
The attack happened at about 11am. BFMTV reported that the person killed was a French literature teacher. A second teacher, reported to be a sports teacher, and a school security guard were in hospital with critical injuries, according to the local prefect.
A video on social media filmed by students showed a man in a grey jacket carrying a knife and attacking people in the school courtyard. One of the victims tried to keep him at a distance with a chair.
The Arras attack came almost exactly three years after Samuel Paty, a 47-year-old history and geography teacher, was killed in an attack by an 18-year-old Chechen refugee outside his school in the Paris suburb of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine on 16 October 2020.
Martin Doussau, a philosophy teacher at the school in Arras, said he had come face-to-face with the suspect, who had just attacked the third victim. He said the man had asked him “quite aggressively” several times if he was a history teacher. It was at that moment, he said, he realised the attack was linked to Paty’s murder.
“He chased me and kept [asking] if I was a history teacher. It was when he asked this I realised it was an external problem, not something linked to a settling of scores in the lycée,” Doussau told BFMTV.
“[The attacker] then turned towards someone he had already injured and it was then the police arrived. They didn’t shoot him but neutralised him with a Taser. It all happened in about 10 minutes, from the moment he entered, attacked a colleague and the police arriving.”
Doussau added: “I don’t think [the attacker] was looking [for] someone in particular, but he was looking for a history teacher. Our thoughts are with our assassinated colleague. We’re shocked by this situation.”
The Gambetta-Carnot school is made up of two establishments: a college for pupils aged 11-15, and a lycée for those aged 15-18.
Sliman Hamzi ,of the Alliance Police union, said officers were on the scene quickly, though nothing could be done to save the teacher who had his carotid artery cut and died almost immediately in the school courtyard. Hamzi said he arrived as the suspected attacker was being taken away by police.
Fabien Dufay, a sports teacher at the school, said he was returning with a group of students when he received a call telling him of the attack and advising him to remain outside. “We thought it was an exercise to start with, but then we were told a colleague had died. It’s shocking.”
Local police said the situation had been contained and no longer posed a danger to the public. Students and teachers were confined to the school premises for two hours before they were allowed to leave.
A vice-president of the lower house of parliament, Naïma Moutchou, said the national assembly “expresses its solidarity and thoughts for the victims, their families and the educational community as we learn that a teacher has been killed and several others have been injured”.
France has been hit a series of attacks by Islamist extremists since 2015.
Paty’s killing led to a wave of rallies and renewed debate about the influence of radical Islam.
