Prime minister Elisabeth Borne says country will be on ‘urgent’ terrorist alert until level of risk established
France has been put on its highest level of security alert after a suspected radical Islamist killed a teacher and injured three others in the north of the country.
Prime minister Elisabeth Borne said on Friday night that the country would be on “urgent” terrorist alert for a limited time while the level of risk was established.
The measure came after a terrorist suspect under surveillance as an Islamist extremist stabbed to death a French teacher in a secondary school in Arras in northern France.
Dominique Bernard, 57, a father-of-three, died in the courtyard of the school from several wounds to the neck as colleagues confronted his attacker, a former pupil.
At a press conference on Friday evening, Jean-François Ricard, France’s anti-terrorist prosecutor, said the suspect, named as Mohammed M, 20, had killed one person and injured three others, not two as previously reported.
Ricard said several witnesses had heard the suspect shout “Allahu Akbar” as he attacked staff at the Gambetta-Carnot school in central Arras. He confirmed that the suspect’s elder brother, two years his senior, was convicted in April this year of two terrorist linked charges and jailed for five years and 18 months.
Police said Mohammed M was born in 2003 in the republic of Ingushetia in Russia’s mainly Muslim North Caucasus. He arrived in France in 2008 with his parents and four siblings. Other sources told French media the 20-year-old had been flagged as a possible security risk only 11 days ago and had been under surveillance by the country’s intelligence services including phone taps. He was reportedly stopped by police on Thursday but released as officers found no reasons to detain him.
