A man stabbed a teacher to death and seriously injured two others at a French secondary school in Arras, Pas-de-Calais, near the Belgian border on Friday morning, Belga News Agency reports.
The incident comes almost three years to the day after the murder of Samuel Paty, a 47-year-old teacher who was beheaded on 16 October 2020 near his secondary school in Yvelines (Île-de-France).
The victim, who was stabbed in the chest and throat, was a French teacher at the school, Lycée Gambetta, Snes-FSU secretary general Sophie Vénétitay confirmed to AFP.
One of the two injured teachers has been admitted to intensive care after being stabbed several times, and has been described as "between life and death" by a source close to the case. The other injured teacher was also admitted to hospital, a police source said. No pupils were injured.
A philosophy teacher who witnessed the attack, Martin Dousseau, described the panic when the school pupils were confronted by a man with a gun: "He attacked a member of staff in the canteen. I tried to get down to intervene, but he turned towards me, chased me and asked me if I was a history-geography teacher. I got the impression that he was looking for a history teacher," he added. "We barricaded ourselves, then the police arrived and immobilised him."
Videos circulating on social networks showed a young man, wearing black trousers and a grey jacket, fighting with several adults in the school courtyard, clearly holding a weapon, before heading for the school gate.
The man reportedly shouted Allah Akbar ("Allah is greater") during the attack.
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Police say that the arrested 20-year-old man is of Chechen origin (as was Samuel Paty's assailant). He was under surveillance by the Directorate General of Internal Security (DGSI) and had been checked on Thursday, an intelligence source told AFP on Friday.
Two teaching unions, Snes-FSU and SE Unsa, also told AFP that the assailant was a former pupil at the school. The man's 17-year-old brother has also been apprehended by the police.
The national anti-terrorist Public Prosecutor's Office has opened an investigation and French President Emmanuel Macron will visit the school later on Friday, the BBC reports. The National Assembly in Paris has suspended its session in solidarity with the victims.
