According to Reuters, the person killed is a French teacher, and a physical education teacher is among the injured. It is not yet clear whether any of the students were injured.
The motive for the attack is still unknown, the BFM TV station, citing an unnamed source, reports that the assailant, aged in his twenties, shouted “Allahu akbar” (Arabic for God is great). It is possible that he is a former student of the school. His brother should have been arrested along with the attacker.
France: A man shouting “Allahu Akbar” has stabbed a schoolteacher to death, and wounded numerous others, in an attack on a school in the city of Arras today.https://t.co/q5UIRt9hLQ
— Wide Awake Media (@wideawake_media) October 13, 2023
According to information published by the newspaper’s website Le Figaro they are both apparently of Chechen origin. The authorities have not yet confirmed any of the information, except that the attack took place and the perpetrator was detained. The French Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (PNAT) is investigating the attack.
The Parisian killer paid to show the teacher
All schools in the city are now closed.
A video that quickly went viral on social media provides the first account of what happened. Filmed from the windows of the lyceum by stunned pupils, it shows a knife-wielding assailant attacking people in the school yard. He walks confidently forward, dressed in a gray jacket. His victims try to restrain him with school chairs. One of the victims falls. “It’s the vice-principal,” comments one of the pupils, whose voice can be heard on the video posted on the Internet. The attacker beats the man on his back.
Foto: Pascal Rossignol, Reuters
Members of the French armed forces patrol the building of the secondary school in Arras, where the attack took place
The attack came just three days before a commemoration of the murder of Paris history teacher Samuel Paty, who three years ago opened up a discussion about caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed at a seminar on freedom of expression, which cost him his life.
Arras is located in the northern French department of Pas-de-Calais, not far from the border with Belgium. According to Reuters, French President Emmanuel Macron arrived at the site around half past one. In parliament, meanwhile, Jean-Noël Barrot, the government deputy for telecommunications and the transition to digital technologies, expressed his condolences “to the families, the school community and the nation”. Barrot also paid “tribute to the heroism of those who seemed to want to intervene themselves to prevent the tragedy”.
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