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CRIME

France raises terror alert after killing of teacher

France raised its alert level on Friday after an attack that killed a teacher at a school in the town of Arras in northeastern France, the office of Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne told AFP.

France raises terror alert after killing of teacher
French President Emmanuel Macron (C), flanked by Pas-de-Calais Prefect Jacques Billant (3rdL), Education Minister Gabriel Attal and Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin at the school in Arras on Friday. Photo by Ludovic MARIN / POOL / AFP

The level was upped after a security meeting attended by President Emmanuel Macron on Friday evening, the office said.

Earlier on Friday a man of Chechen origin stabbed to death a teacher and severely wounded two other adults in the town of Arras.

LATEST: What we know so far about the French school terror attack

Speaking at a press conference on Friday evening, interior minister Gérald Darmanin said the attack was “undoubtedly linked” to the situation in Israel and Palestine.

Earlier, Macron has said that security services foiled a second attack on Friday, believed to be in the greater Paris region.

Darmanin added that eight people are now in custody in relation to the Arras attack, including the attacker and his brother – both of whom had previously been placed on a terror watchlist for extremism.

The attacker had been under “active surveillance” by French security services since late July. 

“This school was struck by the barbarity of Islamist terrorism,” Macron said after visiting the school in Arras, saying the victim had “probably saved many lives” with his courage in seeking to block the attacker.

The suspected attacker, Mohammed Moguchkov, who is in his 20s, is from Russia’s mainly Muslim southern Caucasus region of Chechnya, but had lived in France since he was a child.

Moguchkov cried the Arabic phrase “Allahu akbar!” (God is greatest!), according to the preliminary elements of the investigation.

The victim, a French teacher named by media as 57-year-old Dominique Bernard, was stabbed in the throat and chest.

Those wounded were a member of non-teaching staff who was stabbed multiple times and is fighting for his life and a sports teacher who is in a less serious condition.

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CRIME

Teens charged in France over plot to attack Jewish targets: judicial source

French prosecutors have charged a 19-year-old man and a youth in the Paris region with planning a "terrorist" attack on Jewish targets, a judicial source told AFP on Friday.

Teens charged in France over plot to attack Jewish targets: judicial source

While no details on the pair have been released, French anti-terrorist investigators have expressed increased concern over the young age of some suspects detained in recent months for planning militant attacks.

The 19-year-old has been charged with “terrorist conspiracy” to commit attacks and the “acquisition and possession of arms for a terrorist enterprise,” said the judicial source, speaking on condition of anonymity.

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The youth aged under 18 was detained on June 13, the source said.

The pair made contact on social media and were planning a “a violent action notably aiming at Jewish targets,” said the source without giving details on the plot.

Anti-terrorism investigators say a growing number of youths have been held in recent months for preparing attacks.

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“This is a necessarily worrying phenomenon,” senior anti-terrorist prosecutor Olivier Christen said at an evidentiary hearing on Wednesday.

French politicians have also condemned a growing number of attacks on the country’s Jewish community, the biggest outside Israel and the United States.

Outrage has been expressed over the rape of a 12-year-old Jewish girl in a park in the Paris suburbs last Saturday. Two 13-year-old boys have been charged with rape and making anti-Semitic insults.

Several protest rallies have been held in Paris and other French cities over the case which comes as France prepares for a national election in which the far-right National Rally party is tipped to make major gains. 

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