Jihadism has once again struck France in a context of extreme international tension. Three years after the murder of Samuel Paty in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, a suburb west of Paris, the school, symbol par excellence of the Republic, was targeted once again on Friday, October 13. Mohammed M. killed a literature teacher outside the Gambetta-Carnot school in Arras and wounded three other members of the teaching staff, leaving one of them seriously injured. Another attack was foiled in Limay, close to Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, according to President Emmanuel Macron, who spoke from the Arras high school. It involved a man considered fiché S (their S file in France's Terrorist Radicalization Prevention Database indicating that they may pose a serious threat to the country), who was caught with a knife leaving a mosque.
On Friday evening, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne announced that France had been placed on "emergency attack" alert, the highest level of the Vigipirate government's plan against terrorist threats. "When we pass to this level of vigilance, it is to tell all the French and all the administrations to be careful," explained Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, emphasizing that the soldiers of Operation Sentinelle, a domestic military force set up in 2015 after the Charlie Hebdo satirical newspaper attacks, would be "ramping up." "A few thousand more men will help the police, the gendarmerie to monitor shopping malls, to protect all the French," he added during his interview on the TF1 news channel that evening.
Later, Minister of Education Gabriel Attal, announced that he had "requested increased security around all schools." He also announced the deployment of more than a thousand mobile security team personnel "within our establishments over the coming days."
Earlier in the evening, the anti-terrorist prosecutor Jean-François Ricard recalled the sequence of events at a press conference held at the Arras court. At 11 am, the assailant arrived on foot in front of the school and killed 57-year-old Dominique Bernard, then wounded a sports teacher, with a knife, before entering the school grounds. He then confronted several people, including two technical staff, one of whom was seriously injured. According to a teacher quoted by Agence France-Presse (AFP), the assailant asked him if he was a history teacher.
In a video circulating on social media, Mohammed M., wearing black pants, a grey jacket and a hood, with his hair tied up in a bun, can be seen kicking and stabbing a man on the ground, before turning to another trying to defend himself with a chair used as a shield. None of the pupils, some of whom were in the playground, were hurt in the attack. The assailant was arrested a few minutes later by the police, who used an electric pulse pistol. Several witnesses heard Mohammed M. shout "Allah Akbar" ("God is the greatest" in Arabic), according to the prosecutor.
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