Teacher beheaded in France after showing Mohammed cartoons
A French teacher who had recently displayed students cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed was beheaded outside his school on Friday, in what President Emmanuel Macron named an "Islamist terrorist attack."
The assailant, whose identity has not been established, was shot by police because they tried to arrest him and later died of his injuries, police said.
The attacker shouted "Allahu Akbar" ("God is Greater") as police confronted him, a cry often heard in jihadist attacks, a police source said.
France has seen a wave of Islamist violence since the 2015 terror attacks on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket in the administrative centre.
French anti-terror prosecutors said these were treating the assault as "a murder associated with a terrorist organization."
The attack happened on the outskirts of Paris at around 5 pm (1500 GMT) near to the middle school where in fact the teacher worked in Conflans Saint-Honorine, a northwestern suburb around 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the centre of the French capital.
The killing bore the hallmarks of "an Islamist terrorist attack," President Emmanuel Macron said as he visited the scene.
Visibly moved, Macron said that "the complete nation" stood prepared to defend teachers and that "obscurantism will not win."
The victim was a history teacher who recently showed cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed within a class discussion on freedom of expression, police said.
A parent of a pupil at the institution said the teacher might have stirred "controversy" by asking Muslim pupils to leave the room before showing the cartoons.
"According to my son, he was super nice, super friendly, super kind," the parent, Nordine Chaouadi, told AFPTV.
The teacher "simply thought to the Muslim children: 'Leave, I don't want it to hurt your feelings.' That's what my son told me," he said.
Police said these were investigating a tweet posted from a merchant account that recently showed a headshot of the teacher, and which includes since been turn off.
It was unclear if the message, which contained a threat against Macron - referred to as "the first choice of the infidels" - had been posted by the attacker, they said.
Residents in the usually calm neighborhood said these were shocked while pupils from the school, some accompanied by their parents, gathered in the pub checking their phones for updates.
"Nothing ever happens here," said Mohand Amara, who lives nearby, as he walked his dog not definitely not the school.
"It creates me sad - decapitated, that's shocking," said 15-year-old Virginie, who used to be the murdered teacher's student and said she had "good memories" of him.
Police had attained the scene after acquiring a call in regards to suspicious individual loitering near the school, a police source said.
They learned about the dead man and soon spotted the suspect, armed with a blade, who threatened them as they tried to arrest him.
They opened fire and injured him severely. The person later died of his injuries, a judicial source said.
The scene was cordoned off and a bomb disposal unit dispatched because of the suspected occurrence of an explosive vest, a police source said.
France's parliament suspended Friday's debate after news of the decapitation, with session president Hugues Renson, visibly moved, calling the attack "abominable."
MPs stood as Renson said that "in the name of most of us, I would like to honor the memory of the victim."
Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer tweeted: "The Republic is under attack."
The killing comes as security forces have been on high alert during the ongoing trial of suspected accomplices of the attackers in the Jan 2015 terror attacks in Paris, which also saw a policewoman gunned down in the street.
It also comes just days after a follower of the Islamic State militant group who attacked an officer with a hammer beyond your Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris was sentenced to 28 years in jail.
And last month, charges were brought against a 25-year old Pakistani man after he wounded two persons with a meat cleaver to avenge the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed by Charlie Hebdo, which purportedly prompted the 2015 killings.
Seventeen persons were killed in the three-day spree that heralded a wave of Islamist violence in France which has so far claimed more than 250 lives. - AFP
