Stabbing attack in Arras: France’s interior ministry on high alert for further attacks
A teacher was killed and two other people injured at a high school. Since the beginning of the week, the interior ministry has been on high alert to guard against attacks carried out by lone attackers.
Friday night’s security cabinet comes after a teacher was killed by a radicalised Chechen, and another man was arrested with a knife at a mosque near Paris.
French authorities have opened anti-terror investigations after one person was killed and two others seriously injured in a knife attack at a school in the northeast town of Arras.
Local police say a man armed with a knife killed a teacher and left two other people wounded in a high school in the town of almost 41,000 people on Friday morning. The attacker has since been arrested.
The incident took place at the Gambetta high school, which is located in the town centre, and police say the attacker shouted “Allah Akbar” – God is great in Arabic.
He has been named as 18-year-old Mohammed Mogouchkov, a former student at the school of Chechen origin who was the subject of “active monitoring” by France’s General Directorate of Internal Security DGSI.
Mogouchkgov had been stopped and searched as recently as last week but was released as there was no reason to hold him, officials said.
Later on Friday evening, Macron held an emergency meeting of his security cabinet in Paris.
Senior government ministers, police, military and intelligence officials attended the meeting which came after a second security incident was confirmed.
A 24-year-old man known to have been “radicalised” was arrested and placed in police custody for carrying a knife as he left a mosque in Limay on the outskirts of Paris. The Versailles public prosecutor’s office confirmed the man’s arrest.