France on high alert after suspected radical Islamist kills teacher
France has been put on its highest level of security alert after a suspected radical Islamist killed a teacher and injured three others in the north of the country.
Prime minister Elisabeth Borne said on Friday night that the country would be on “urgent” terrorist alert for a limited time while the level of risk was established.
The measure came after a terrorist suspect under surveillance as an Islamist extremist stabbed to death a French teacher in a secondary school in Arras in northern France.
Dominique Bernard, 57, a father-of-three, died in the courtyard of the school from several wounds to the neck as colleagues confronted his attacker, a former pupil.
At a press conference on Friday evening, Jean-François Ricard, France’s anti-terrorist prosecutor, said the suspect, named as Mohammed M, 20, had killed one person and injured three others, not two as previously reported.
Ricard said several witnesses had heard the suspect shout “Allahu Akbar” as he attacked staff at the Gambetta-Carnot school in central Arras. He confirmed that the suspect’s elder brother, two years his senior, was convicted in April this year of two terrorist linked charges and jailed for five years and 18 months.
Police said Mohammed M was born in 2003 in the republic of Ingushetia in Russia’s mainly Muslim North Caucasus. He arrived in France in 2008 with his parents and four siblings. Other sources told French media the 20-year-old had been flagged as a possible security risk only 11 days ago and had been under surveillance by the country’s intelligence services including phone taps. He was reportedly stopped by police on Thursday but released as officers found no reasons to detain him.
Friday’s attack echoed the killing of Samuel Paty, a 47-year-old history and geography teacher, almost exactly three years ago by an 18-year-old Chechen refugee outside his school in the Paris suburb of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine.
Ricard said a number of other people linked to the suspect had been taken into custody for questioning, but said he would not give more information. He did not confirm that one of the suspect’s younger brothers was also arrested after the killing on Friday.
On Friday evening, Gérald Darmanin, the French Interior Minister, said he believed there was a link between the attack in Arras and the attacks by Hamas terrorists on Israel. He said the suspect was being closely monitored by the DGSI, the country’s internal security services, who had tapped his phone. “He was in contact with his brother,” Darmanin said in a television interview.
The attack happened at about 11am. A video on social media filmed by students showed a man in a dark grey jacket carrying a knife and attacking people in the school courtyard. One of the victims had tried to keep him at a distance with a chair. A second teacher, reported to be a sports teacher, and a school security guard were in hospital with critical injuries on Friday evening as well as another member of the school’s canteen staff.
Martin Doussau, a philosophy teacher at the school in Arras, said he had come face-to-face with the suspect.
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.”
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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 a particular person, 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 Police Alliance 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.
French president Emmanuel Macron travelled to Arras to express his support for the victims’ families and school staff.
“The teacher who was killed intervened first. He undoubtedly saved many lives. His seriously injured colleague and the staff who were also seriously injured showed the same courage. But so did the headteacher and many others in that moment,” Macron said.
“I am here to show the nation’s support. To say that we are united and that we are standing firm … The choice has been made not to give in to terror, not to allow anything to divide us.”
The suspect’s family was reportedly served with an expulsion order in February 2014 and taken to the airport to board a flight to Moscow. After humanitarian organisations intervened, the expulsion was cancelled and the family allowed to remain.
Le Figaro reported that the older brother, Movsar M, was arrested in 2019 as part of a group planning an attack on the Élysée Palace.