French teacher stabbed to death in knife attack at school

A teacher has been killed and several people wounded in a knife attack Friday at a school in the northern French city of Arras.

The French interior minister has confirmed a police operation was ongoing and that the attacker has been arrested, according to POLITICO.

According to several media reports, the attack took place inside the Gambetta High School at 11 a.m. on October 13. The attacker is reportedly of Chechen origin and is on the French police register for radicalized individuals. He is said to have shouted “Allahu Akbar” during the attack.

Video circulating on Twitter shows footage of what appears to be the assailant in the school playground with several people trying to overpower him.

One pupil told Le Parisien he received a video of the suspect entering the school when the attack took place. Pupils were kept in classrooms as the stabbings unfolded.

A French union leader said the teacher was killed “protecting pupils” and that the security guard is in a critical condition.

French President Emmanuel Macron is heading to the scene according to the Elysée Palace, as well as Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin and Education Minister Gabriel Attal.

The anti-terrorist branch of the prosecutor’s office is in charge of the investigation into the attack.

The attack came hours after President Macron called for national “unity” and urged the French to avoid importing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Mr Macron’s plea was made after the Israeli foreign ministry website warned that Hamas had called on “all of its supporters around the world to hold a ‘Day of Rage’” on Friday to “attack Israelis and Jews”.

“It is reasonable to assume that there will be protest events in various countries that are liable to turn violent,” it said in a statement.

The attack comes three years after another attack against a school in the Paris suburbs where a teacher was beheaded by a Chechen extremist.

France has been on high alert since Hamas launched a shock attack on Israel, killing over 1,200 people and kidnapping dozens into Gaza. French police have been dispatched to protect Jewish schools and places of worship amid a spate of antisemitic acts.