PARIS: France will deploy 7,000 soldiers after a Chechen-origin man fatally stabbed a teacher and severely wounded three other adults at a school in the North-eastern town of Arras, the Elysee presidential palace said on Saturday.
The attack on Friday was denounced by President Emmanuel Macron as an act of “Islamist terror” in Arras, which has large Jewish and Muslim populations.
The soldier deployment is expected to be completed by Monday evening.
In the wake of the incident, France has elevated its alert level to the highest position following a crucial security meeting chaired by President Macron on Friday. Macron revealed that security forces had thwarted a separate “attempted attack” in another region.
Visiting the affected school, Macron described it as a target of “the barbarity of Islamist terrorism” and commended the victim for likely saving many lives through courageous efforts to block the attacker.The suspected assailant, Mohammed Moguchkov, in his twenties, was apprehended by the police.
Moguchkov, hailing from Russia’s predominantly Muslim southern Caucasus region of Chechnya, was previously flagged on a French national register called “Fiche S” as a potential security threat. He was under electronic and physical surveillance by France’s domestic intelligence agency, the DGSI.
Preliminary findings from the investigation indicate that Moguchkov exclaimed the Arabic phrase “Allahu akbar!” (God is greatest) during the attack.
