France: Teacher Dead In ‘Islamist Terror’ Stabbing As Nation Is On High Hamas Alert
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
PARIS (Worthy News) – A 20-year-old man armed with a knife killed a French teacher and seriously injured two other people in what President Emmanuel Macron called “barbaric Islamic terrorism.”
Friday’s killing came as the Palestinian militant group Hamas had urged a global “day of rage,” though it wasn’t immediately clear whether there was a connection.
The stabbing happened at the Gambetta-Carnot public school in Arras, a town of about 42,000 roughly 25 miles (40 kilometers) southwest of Lille, near the Belgian border.
The suspect, who has been arrested, was a former high school student where the attack happened, a police source said. One of the attackers’ brothers was also detained nearby.
Police could not confirm local media reports that Friday’s attacker shouted “Allahu Akbar” or “Allah is greatest.”
Only a day earlier, Macron had urged the French to remain united and refrain from bringing the Israel-Hamas conflict home.
While visiting the attack site, Macron paid his respects to the dead teacher, whose body still lay under a cover surrounded by a pool of blood. “[He] stepped in and undoubtedly saved a lot of lives himself,” Macron said. “Our choice is made not to give in to terror, not to let anything divide us.”
Attacks on schools are rare in France. But this one struck a raw nerve as the nation still recovers from the condemned beheading of Samuel Paty, a 47-year-old history teacher who showed caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in class to illustrate free speech.
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