France on emergency alert after knife attack at school

A The decision was taken by Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne after a security meeting at the Élysée with President Emmanuel Macron, reported the agency France-Presse (AFP), adding that there is fear of contagion due to the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

The French anti-terrorism prosecutor said today that several people were detainedin addition to the main suspect in the attack.

Jean-François Ricard detailed that Among the injured are a teacher, a security guard and a cleaning worker.

French authorities had previously said that two men were detained following the attack.

According to a police source, the man responsible for the attack on the secondary school in Arras is 20 years old and of Chechen origin. The attacker’s 17-year-old brother was also detained by French security authorities.

According to information from a French police source, the attacker shouted “Allah Akbar” [Deus é grande] during the attack.

No high school students were injured, according to a police source.

An older brother of the suspect was arrested in the summer of 2019 by France’s anti-terrorism intelligence service, suspected of being involved in planning an attack that was foiled and is in prison, French intelligence revealed to the Associated Press (AP).

The older brother was also a former student at the targeted secondary school and is serving a five-year prison sentence for terrorist crimes.

The National Assembly announced the suspension of work in solidarity with the victims, and President Emmanuel Macron went to the site of the attack, which is in the city of Arras, in the department of Pas-de-Calais, in northern France.

Emmanuel Macron highlighted that France was “struck once again by the barbarity of Islamic terrorism”.

“Almost three years after the murder of Samuel Paty, terrorism once again struck a school and in a context that we all know,” said Macron at the scene of the attack in Arras.

French media outlets France Info and BFM reported that the attacker was a former student of the school.

The attack takes place around three years after the murder of teacher Samuel Paty, killed on October 16, 2020 near his school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, in the Paris region, around ten days after showing caricatures of Muhammad to his students during a lesson on freedom of expression. The 18-year-old attacker, a Russian refugee of Chechen origin, was killed by police.

Today’s attack takes place as the war intensifies in Israel, against the Islamist movement Hamas, leading the French Executive to fear the conflict will be imported into its country.

[Notícia atualizada às 20h05]

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