After a Chechen-origin man fatally stabbed a teacher and severely injured three other adults in a school attack in the northern town of Arras, France would deploy 7,000 soldiers, the Elysee presidential palace announced Saturday. President Emmanuel Macron condemned the incident on Friday as an act of “Islamist terror” in Arras, which has a strong Jewish and Muslim population. The soldiers’ deployment will be completed by Monday evening. Following a critical security conference convened by Macron on Friday, France has upped its alert level to the highest level.
Macron said a separate “attempted attack” in another region had been foiled by security forces
Macron said a separate “attempted attack” in another region had been foiled by security forces. “This school was struck by the barbarity of Islamist terrorism,” Macron said after visiting the school, saying the victim had “probably saved many lives” with his courage in seeking to block the attacker.
Police apprehended the suspected attacker, Mohammed Moguchkov, who is in his twenties. Moguchkov is from Chechnya, Russia’s predominantly Muslim southern Caucasus region. According to a police source, he was already on a French national register known as “Fiche S” as a potential security danger and was under electronic and physical observation by France’s domestic intelligence agency, the DGSI. According to preliminary evidence, Moguchkov yelled the Arabic phrase “Allahu akbar!” (God is greatest).