A school in northern France where a teacher was stabbed to death by a knifeman who allegedly shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ was today evacuated following a bomb threat.
Dozens of staff and pupils left the combined Gambetta middle and high school in the northern city of Arras around 10:30 am (0830 GMT) after the threat was made on the internet, authorities said.
The bomb threat comes as schools across France are today set to hold a minute of silence for French literature teacher Dominique Bernard, who was allegedly stabbed to death by Mohamed Mogouchkov, a Chechen refugee aged 20.
The knife attack on Friday in Arras, almost three years to the day after a similar killing outside Paris, has shocked teachers and members of the wider public, triggered a massive security response and prompted France to increase its attack alert level.
President Emmanuel Macron had called for a ‘ruthless’ approach towards extremists after Mogouchkov reportedly shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ before launching his attack on Bernard, 57.
Rescue workers wait in front the Gambetta high school during a bomb alert on Monday in Arras, northern France
French military servicemen of ongoing French military operation “Operation Sentinelle” stand guard in front of the Gambetta high school during its’ evacuation after a bomb threat in Arras, northeastern France on Monday
A video shows a confrontation between two men in the school grounds
This handout photo released by an anonymous source on October 13, 2023 shows the suspected perpetrator (C) of a knife attack being escorted by a policeman outside of the Gambetta high school in the town of Arras, northern France
Bernard’s murder has further increased nervousness in France, which has large Muslim and Jewish populations and has been on the alert for violence since Hamas’s attack on Israel.
And today, the school where Bernard was stabbed alongside three others was evacuated following a bomb threat made via the internet, authorities said.
Classes were expected to pause for a minute of silence at 2pm (1200 GMT) to remember Bernard in schools across France. Early lessons were cancelled in middle and high schools on Monday to allow teachers to discuss the attack and how to deal with it in front of pupils.
Nevertheless, ‘we will not allow terrorism to bring our country to a standstill’, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said on Monday. Macron would chair a new national security meeting later on Monday, the Elysee said.
Bernard was killed almost three years to the day after teacher Samuel Paty was beheaded outside his school in a Paris suburb, on October 16, 2020.
Paty’s killer and the suspected Arras assailant share a background in Russia’s North Caucasus region.
Moguchkov, who arrived in France at the age of five, reportedly cried ‘Allahu akbar!’ meaning God is greatest during the attack. He has been detained but has not yet spoken, according to a police source.
He was already on a French national register as a potential security threat and under electronic and physical surveillance by France’s domestic intelligence agency, the DGSI. His father, who was also on the list, was deported in 2018.
French police and firefighters stand in front of the Gambetta-Carnot school, where French teacher Dominique Bernard was killed in a knife attack on Friday, after the school was evacuated following a bomb alert in Arras on Monday
A psychiatrist of the French SAMU (Service for Urgent Medical Help) waits in front of the Gambetta high school during its’ evacuation after a bomb threat in Arras on Monday
Police officers stand in front the Gambetta high school during bomb alert on Monday
French President Emmanuel Macron arrives at the Gambetta high school in Arras on October 13
A pupil is comforted by a relative as he leaves Gambetta high-school in Arras on October 13, where a teacher was killed and two others were severely wounded
Police investigate following the stabbing at the school in Arras on Friday morning
Three years ago, Paty was beheaded by 18-year-old Abdullah Anzorov, a radicalised refugee born in Moscow to ethnic Chechen parents. Like Ingushetia, Chechnya is a predominantly Muslim republic in Russia’s Caucasus region.
Anzorov, who had come to France as a six-year-old, was shot dead by police at the scene.
Macron has called on police to comb through their files of radicalised people who could be deported from France to make sure no-one has been overlooked.
He has also told ministers to ’embody a state that is ruthless towards all those who harbour hate and terrorist ideologies’, a senior aide told reporters.
They added that Macron has told the interior minister to take a ‘special approach to young men between the ages of 16 and 25 from the Caucasus’.
The French President later wrote that schools would remain a ‘bulwark’ against extremism and ‘a sanctuary for our pupils and everyone who works there’
Friday’s killing has led to calls for tighter security at schools. The government has already put the country on high alert and deployed 7,000 troops.
More than 260 people have been killed in France since 2012 in assaults blamed on, or claimed by, Islamist radicals – from mass killings in Paris and Nice in 2015 and 2016, to individual murders of teachers, police officers or a priest.
The string of violent incidents has kept security and immigration issues at the forefront of political debate.
On Monday, National Assembly (lower house) speaker Yael Braun-Pivet, who belongs to Macron’s Renaissance party, said that a draft immigration law should be voted through “by the end of the year”.
The bill provides that “people who are not integrated, who are radicalised, who swear ferocious hatred against the (French) republic… must indeed be able to be removed”, she told broadcaster France 2.
Resistance to the draft law has come from the conservative Republicans, who reject other provisions allowing for the regularisation of some migrants without residence permits.
This is a breaking news story, more to follow…
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