Several hundred people gathered this Sunday in Arras, in northern France, in memory of Dominique Bernard, the French teacher stabbed to death on Friday by a radicalized former student, an Islamist attack that led the country to reinforce security.
The attack, carried out by a 20-year-old former student of Russian nationality, who was accused of radicalism and left three people injured, was described by President Macron as “Islamic terrorism.”
The case especially shook teachers, who had already been affected three years ago by the murder of a teacher, Samuel Paty, beheaded on October 16, 2020 for showing caricatures of Muhammad in classes.
On Monday, at 2 p.m. (1 p.m. in Lisbon), a minute of silence will be observed in French schools in honor of the victims of the school attacks, the Minister of Education, Gabriel Attal, announced on Saturday.
“We will be there to guarantee your safety,” Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne promised teachers on Saturday.
The meeting took place today in the city’s central square, not far from the Gambetta school complex, the scene of the attack, which occurred against a backdrop of fears that the conflict in the Middle East could be reflected in France.
The city siren sounded several times in the square, which was filled with people in a dead silence.
As of Friday, France has been on “emergency attack” alert, the highest level in the Vigipirate system, and plans to deploy 7,000 troops across the country on Monday.
“The climate of ‘jihadism’, of action, is evident since last Saturday,” when Hamas attacked Israel, declared Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin on Saturday, presenting his “firm line”: the “systematic expulsion of any foreigner “. (…) considered dangerous by the intelligence services.”
Fears of an attack led to the evacuation of the Louvre Museum and then the Palace of Versailles on Saturday, based on false alarms, but today both facilities reopened during their usual hours.
Since his arrest, the perpetrator of the attack, Mohammed Mogouchkov, who, according to witnesses, shouted “Allah Akbar”, “has not given any explanation”, a police source told AFP.
Mogouchkov had recently been under surveillance by the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI), due, according to Gérald Darmanin, to his links with his father, also investigated for radicalization and deported in 2018, and with his brother, arrested for his participation in an attack planned against the Elysee Palace.
According to a police source, he arrived in France in 2008 and, according to French authorities, he was born in the Russian republic of Ingushetia, with a Muslim majority, but he could not be legally deported because he entered the country before the age of 13, he noted. by Gérald Darmanin.
Since the attack against the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in January 2015 (12 dead), a series of “jihadist” attacks have killed more than 260 people in France.
Source: TSF
