A young man, aged around 20, stabbed several people at the Gambetta high school, in the center of the city of Arras, in the north of France. A teacher died, two other people were also injured this Friday, October 13. The attacker, arrested by the police, was under surveillance by the DGSI and had been checked the day before, without any offense being accused of him.
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The man, according to police sources, shouted “ God is great » at the time of the attack. He would be of Chechen origin, born in Russia, with S file, which means that he was one of the people threatening state security. Mohammed M., aged 20, was a former student of the establishment. He was the subject, according to an AFP source, “ active monitoring » from the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI).
“ He was wiretapped and subject to physical surveillance “, ” since this summer » specified this source, adding that “ his telephone conversations had not revealed, in recent days, any elements allowing him to announce a move to action “.
His profile is similar to “ a radicalized individual whose potential is known but who suddenly decides to take action, making it difficult to neutralize him “.
French President Emmanuel Macron visited the scene of the attack early in the afternoon.
A teacher killed and high school agent in absolute emergency
The teacher killed this Friday, October 13 at the Gambetta high school in Arras received a stab in the throat as well as the thorax. Among the two injured are a high school officer in absolute emergency, suffering from several stab wounds, and another teacher. According to a source close to the case, the agent is “ very seriously injured, between life and death “. No high school students were injured.
A philosophy teacher targeted by the attacker, but who managed to escape – told the media present on site that the young man “ looking for a history teacher “. Elements which recall the circumstances of the assassination of Samuel Paty, a 47-year-old history and geography professor, beheaded by a young man of Chechen origin, on October 16, 2020. The drama took place around ten days later that Samuel Paty showed his students caricatures of Mohammed during lessons on freedom of expression.
Extreme radicalization of the older brother
The national anti-terrorism prosecution announced this Friday that it had opened an investigation. The attacker’s brother, aged 17, was also arrested near another establishment. And according to a police source, “ several family members were arrested for the purposes of the investigation “.
In the summer of 2019, his older brother was arrested by the DGSI as part of a foiled attack plan near the Presidency of the Republic, then for acts of apology for terrorism. He is currently in prison after being sentenced last April to five years in prison for not having denounced the planned attack.
The investigation pointed to the “ extreme radicalization » from this older brother. It also showed that in 2016, during a sequence on the values of the Republic, he declared that the attack on Charlie Hebdo had taken place because the newspaper had “ insulted Muslims “. This even though Mohammed M. was himself a student at the Gambetta high school in Arras at the time.
The mother had afraid for his son “, ” that he turns like his father »
The investigation also showed that the mother of the siblings said she had lived alone with her children since her husband’s expulsion, but the investigations suggested that the father had in fact returned to France. On March 5, 2021, Mohammed M. submitted a request to re-examine his asylum application, deemed inadmissible by the refugee protection office, then his appeal was also rejected in August 2022, according to the intelligence source.
A former student of the Carnot high school in Arras called Tristan, now 20 years old, was in the same second class as Mohammed M. and belonged to the same group of friends. He describes to AFP a young man “ solar who laughed with them “. An amateur boxer, he had been fired from his club according to Tristan, who mentions a “ a little rebellious character but nothing alarming “.
According to André, a resident of the Arras district where the family lives, Mohammed was a young man “ very distant “. It was ” every day » sports in the neighborhood, ran and “ was boxing in a vacuum, punching, exactly the ones he did in the video (from the attack broadcast on social networks – Editor’s note), always the same gesture “.
Another resident of the neighborhood, who does not want to give her name, describes a family made up of the mother and four children, two boys and two girls and indicates that, recently, the mother had “ afraid for his son “, fear ” that he turns like his father “.
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