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A history teacher who started a discussion with students about cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad of Islam was beheaded on a street near Paris, a police officer said.
Officers shot dead the suspected killer, the official continued.
The French antiterrorist prosecutor has opened an investigation into Friday’s incident outside the capital.
French President Macron condemned the attack on the teacher and urged the nation to unite.
“One of our compatriots was killed today because he was teaching. He taught his students about freedom of speech, the freedom to believe or not to believe. It was a cowardly attack. He was the victim of an Islamist terrorist attack, ”Macron said.
“Tonight my thoughts are with everyone who is close to him, with his family, with his colleagues at the university where we have seen the director show courage in the last week. Under pressure [from parents] he did his job with extraordinary duty.
“Tonight I want to say to teachers from all over France, we are with them, the whole nation is with them today and tomorrow. We must protect them, defend them, allow them to do their job and educate the citizens of tomorrow.
The incident occurred in the town of Eragny, in the Val d’Oise region northwest of Paris.
A police officer said the suspect, armed with a knife and an airsoft pistol, was shot about 600 meters from where the teacher died.
The teacher had been threatened after opening a discussion “for a debate” about the cartoons, the police officer told The Associated Press.
It was the second terrorism-related incident since the opening of an ongoing trial into the January 2015 newsroom massacre at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.
The newspaper recently republished cartoons of the prophet. A young man from Pakistan was arrested after stabbing two people outside the newspaper’s former offices who sustained non-life-threatening injuries.
