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French President Emmanuel Macron has denounced what he called an “Islamist terror attack” against a beheaded history professor in a Paris suburb, urging the nation to stand together against extremism.
The teacher had discussed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad of Islam with his class, authorities said. The alleged attacker was shot and killed by police after the beheading on Friday.
The French counter-terrorism prosecutor opened a murder investigation with an alleged terrorist motive, the prosecutor’s office said.
Macron visited the school where the teacher worked in the town of Conflans-Saint-Honorine and met with staff after the murder.
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An Associated Press reporter saw three ambulances arrive at the scene, heavily armed police surrounding the area, and police vans lining the tree-lined streets nearby.
“One of our compatriots was killed today because he taught … freedom of expression, the freedom to believe or not to believe,” Macron said.
He said the attack should not divide France because that is what the extremists want. “We must all be together as citizens,” he said.
The gruesome murder of the teacher occurred in the town of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine while the suspect was killed by the police in neighboring Eragny.
Abdulmonam Eassa / AP
“One of our compatriots was assassinated today because he taught … freedom of speech, the freedom to believe or not to believe,” said French President Emmanuel Macron.
A police officer said the suspect, armed with a knife and an airsoft pistol, which shoots plastic pellets, was shot and killed about 600 meters from where the teacher was killed after he failed to respond to orders to lower the guns. weapons and acted in a threatening manner.
The teacher had received threats after opening a discussion “for a debate” about the cartoons about 10 days ago, the police officer told The Associated Press.
A student’s father had filed a complaint against the teacher, another police officer said, adding that the alleged killer did not have a child at the school. The identity of the suspect was not made public.
French media reported that the suspect was an 18-year-old Chechen, born in Moscow. That information could not be immediately confirmed.
France has offered asylum to many Chechens since the Russian military waged war against Islamist separatists in Chechnya in the 1990s and early 2000s, and there are Chechen communities scattered throughout France.
Michel Euler / AP
French police officers gather after a history teacher who opened a discussion with students about cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad of Islam was beheaded on a street north of Paris. Police shot and killed the alleged killer.
France has seen occasional violence involving its Chechen community in recent months, in the Dijon region, the Mediterranean city of Nice and the western city of Saint-Dizier, believed to be linked to local criminal activity.
The attack came as Macron is pushing for a new law against what he calls domestic “separatism,” in particular by Islamic radicals accused of indoctrinating vulnerable people through home schools, extremist preaching and other activities.
France has the largest Muslim population in Western Europe with up to 5 million members, and Islam is the country’s No. 2 religion.
“We didn’t see it coming,” Conflans resident Remi Tell told CNews television station. He described the city as peaceful.
It was the second terrorism-related incident since the opening of an ongoing trial on the January 2015 newsroom massacre in the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo after the publication of cartoons of the prophet of Islam.
When the trial opened, the newspaper republished cartoons of the prophet to underscore the right to freedom of expression.
Exactly three weeks ago, a young man from Pakistan was arrested after stabbing, in front of the newspaper’s former offices, two people who suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
The 18-year-old told police he was upset by the publication of the cartoons.
The incident came as the Macron government is working on a bill to tackle Islamist radicals who authorities say are creating a parallel society outside the values of the French Republic.
