
A 20-year-old man fatally stabbed a teacher and gravely wounded two other people in an attack at a school in the northern France city of Arras on Friday that President Emmanuel Macron condemned as “barbaric Islamic terrorism.” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said France was now on its highest state of alert. He also said there was “probably a link between what’s happening in the Middle East and this incident” at Arras, where the suspect was of Chechen origin.
The suspect, named locally as Mohammed Moguchkov, was a former student at the Lycee Gambetta High School where the attack took place and is being held close to that school, police sources said. They said he was a citizen of Russia’s mainly Muslim southern Caucasus region, had cried “Allahu Akbar” (God is great), and struck the French language teacher in the neck and throat. He was also reportedly carrying a knife.
Police have not yet established a motive for the attack, which came almost three years after another teacher, Samuel Paty, was beheaded by a Chechen refugee near his Paris suburb school in an attack that shocked France. The latest attack occurred at the same high school but with different victims.
A video obtained by Reuters showed the attacker running into the school’s parking lot, where philosophy teacher Martin Doussau tried to stop him with a chair and was hit in the shoulder and stomach by the assailant. The assailant then ran inside the school, striking another teacher and a security guard before escaping.
Doussau, who had been in the front row of a classroom when the attack began, told Reuters: “It was an act of pure madness. There was blood everywhere.” He described the assailant shouting: “Allahu akbar!” (God is greatest). “It’s impossible to explain what happened,” Doussau added. “I’m in shock.”
Moguchkov, of the Russian Republic of Chechnya, had been on a national register known as Fiche S that marks people who are potential security risks. He was also under electronic and physical surveillance, a police source said. His elder brother, who was serving time in prison for links to Islamist militants and glorifying terrorist acts, was also being monitored.
The prime minister’s office said the country raised its alert level to the highest after a crunch security meeting at which Macron was present. Education Minister Gabriel Attal said security would be stepped up in schools nationwide.
Several hundred police were deployed at the scene of the slayings, and the suspect was being searched nearby, authorities said. He is being held without bail in connection with the investigation.
President Macron paid his respects and praised the victim’s courage at the site where the teacher lay dead. “He stood up against an enemy and saved several lives, including his own,” Macron said. Earlier, he had called on the country to remain united and not bring the conflict between Israel and Hamas home.