France school stabbing: School where teacher was stabbed death in Arras evacuated over bomb alert
A high school where a teacher was fatally stabbed in France was evacuated on Monday morning following a bomb alert on Monday morning.
The attack happened at City School Gambetta-Carnot in the town of Arras in the north of the country on Friday at around 11am. Two other people were injured.
The prefecture of the northern Pas-de-Calais region said the decision was made to evacuate the school after police received a bomb threat via its website.
A French military serviceman stands guard in front of the Gambetta high school during its’ evacuation after a bomb threat in Arras
(AFP via Getty Images)
While there were no classes scheduled on Monday at the school, its doors were open for pupils and staff to pay tribute to teacher Dominique Bernard, who was killed by a 20-year-old man.
During the bomb alert, teachers, some of them in tears and holding each other, left the building, as did pupils who had come to lay flowers in tribute to Bernard.
As a police bomb squad arrived, teachers and students gathered in the courtyard of a building opposite their school as civil protection personnel comforted them.
France is on heightened alert against feared terror threats following the stabbing incident.
Schools across the country will hold a moment of silence after the teacher was killed and three other people were injured last week in the attack by a former student suspected of Islamic radicalisation.
Hours following the attack, Emmanuel Macron visited the school, describing the attack as the result of “barbaric Islamist terrorism”, before praising the killed teacher. “The teacher who was killed had come forward to protect others and had without doubt saved many lives,” he said.
Counter-terrorism authorities are investigating Friday’s stabbing, and the suspected assailant and several others are in custody, prosecutors said. The suspect had been under recent surveillance by intelligence services for radicalisation.
Police respond to the attack on at the school on Friday
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The prosecutor said the alleged assailant was a former student there and repeatedly shouted “Allahu akbar,” or “God is great”, during the attack.
Another teacher and a security guard are in a critical condition with wounds from the stabbing, police said.
The counter-terrorism prosecutor said a cleaning worker was also injured.
More follows on this breaking news story….
