PARIS, Oct 15 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The French prime minister has put the country on its highest state of counter-terrorism alert after an assailant fatally stabbed a teacher and seriously wounded two others.
Witnesses said the attack occurred at a school in Arras, northern France. The knifeman is now in custody.
The “attack emergency” level has been used in previous counter-terror cases. The alert can trigger extra security deployments and public warnings.
On Saturday, 7,000 soldiers were mobilised for increased security patrols and the Louvre Museum in Paris was closed for security reasons.
Speaking to French media, police said the Palace of Versailles had been evacuated on Saturday after a bomb threat. The palace, a major tourist attraction, was closed for the rest of the day.
The attack at Gambetta high school in the northern city, at about 11 local time on Friday, came amid rising tensions in France’s sizeable Muslim and Jewish communities, due to the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said there was “no doubt” a link between the Arras attack and the Israel-Hamas conflict.
The attacker, named as 20-year-old Russian national Mohamed Mogouchkov, is of Chechen origin and known to the security services for his involvement with extremism, according to police.
Police also arrested several members of his family – a brother aged 17, his mother, a sister and an uncle.
The man killed was a French language teacher, stabbed in the throat and chest. Another teacher and a security guard were seriously wounded and are now in hospital. A third person – a cleaner – was less seriously hurt in the attack, and no children were hurt.
The attack comes nearly three years since the murder and beheading of another teacher, Samuel Paty, at his school outside Paris.
The perpetrator of that attack, 18-year-old Abdullakh Anzorov, a Russian Muslim refugee, was shot dead by police shortly afterwards.
France has been hit by a series of extremist attacks in recent years. The worst was in November 2015 when gunmen and suicide bombers attacked entertainment venues and cafes in Paris, killing 130 people. That attack was claimed by the Daesh group. — NNN-AGENCIES
