After the beheading of a history teacher who had shown his students caricatures of Mahomet, Friday, October 16, in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, in Yvelines, five new people were taken into police custody on the night of Friday to Saturday.
A total of nine people were arrested.
His alleged attacker was killed by police in the nearby town of Éragny, in Val-d'Oise, three weeks after the attack in front of the former Charlie Hebdo premises.
Attack in Conflans-Saint-Honorine: "Investigators are interested in the terrorist's electronic equipment"
00:43
"They will not pass. Obscurantism will not win", hammered, moved, the head of state Emmanuel, at the address of radical Islamists, during a declaration at the exit of the college of Bois d'Aulne of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine where the victim worked.
The President of the Republic, surrounded by the Ministers of the Interior, Gerald Darmanin, and of Education, Jean-Michel Blanquer, called on "the whole nation" to side with the teachers to "defend" them.
Statement after the terrorist attack in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine.
https://t.co/kRtDv7Y8pv
- Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) October 16, 2020
"Tonight, it is the Republic which is attacked with the despicable assassination of one of its servants, a professor", had reacted earlier on Twitter Jean-Michel Blanquer, who will receive on Saturday the representatives of the personnel and the parents of students.
Tomorrow, I will receive representatives of staff and parents of students.
I will address myself by video to all the teachers, to all the staff and to the families.
For a reaction of absolute solidarity and solidity of our entire institution.
The Republic does not give in
- Jean-Michel Blanquer (@jmblanquer) October 16, 2020
Back in Paris, I keep myself informed directly of the crisis unit that I have opened, in conjunction with the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister.
#Conflans
- Gérald DARMANIN (@GDarmanin) October 16, 2020
The national anti-terrorism prosecutor's office (Pnat) announced to AFP that it immediately seized the investigation, opened for "assassination in connection with a terrorist enterprise" and "criminal terrorist association".
The national anti-terrorism prosecutor, Jean-François Ricard will hold a press conference on Saturday afternoon.
According to France 24 journalist Karim Hakiki, the assailant "was known to the intelligence services".
He has been identified as an 18-year-old young man of Chechen origin born in Moscow, according to the judicial source.
Among the five new people taken into custody, there are two parents of a student from the college where the victim worked, as well as people from the assailant's non-family entourage.
The Conflans-Sainte-Honorine terrorist "was known to the intelligence services"
01:19
Suspicious individual prowling around a school
The facts took place around 5 p.m., near the Bois d'Aulne college in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, according to a police source.
Police officers from the city's anti-crime brigade (BAC) have been called in for a suspicious individual prowling around a school, according to this source.
On the spot, they discovered the victim and, 200 meters further on in Éragny, tried to stop a man armed with a knife which threatened them and fired on him.
According to a police source, the victim is a history teacher from the college of Bois-d'Aulne.
The alleged attacker, whose identity was not immediately established, is deceased, a judicial source said.
According to a source close to the investigation, he shouted "Allah Akbar" before being shot.
The investigators are looking in particular to know if the attacker is the author of a message posted on Twitter by an account now closed and which shows a photo of the victim's head.
Under this photo, a message threatens Emmanuel Macron, "the leader of the infidels", and its author claims to want to avenge the one "who dared to belittle Muhammad".
Shock and misunderstanding
Shock and incomprehension dominated, Friday evening, among residents met in this residential area, which they describe as calm and without history.
The commune of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine struck by horror
01:04
Rodrigo Arenas, co-president of the FCPE, the first association of parents of pupils, said to have received a report, a week ago, which mentioned "an extremely angry father" after the publication in class of a cartoon of Mohammed.
The victim allegedly, according to Rodrigo Arenas, "invited the Muslim students out of the classroom" before showing a caricature of the prophet crouching with a star drawn on his buttocks and the inscription "a star is born".
"My son was in the class the day the teacher took them out because they were Muslims, because he had to show a caricature of the prophet," a parent of a student told AFP who requested the anonymity, whose son is in 4th grade.
"There is only one little girl who stayed, who did not want to go out, it is this little girl who said that he had shown the photo of a naked man", a he continued.
"Apparently, he did not do it badly, my son told me that he did this to preserve the children, not to be upset, not to be shocked", added this parent. .
Political reactions
In an atmosphere full of emotion, the deputies rose to the National Assembly to "salute the memory" of the teacher and denounce a "abominable attack".
Very affected, the chairman of the meeting Hugues Renson (LREM) spoke just before the interruption of the debates at 8 p.m.
"We learned with dismay the abominable attack that occurred. On behalf of the national representation, on behalf of all of us, I would like to salute the memory of the victim," he said.
Politicians have all reacted strongly.
Éric Ciotti, LR deputy: "In the face of Islamism, we must stop retreating, we are at war! Let's end with words, end with half measures, end with cowardice! To win, he must act! "
On his Twitter account, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of La France insoumise said: "Ignoble crime in Conflans! In fact the murderer takes himself for the god he claims to be. He sullies his religion. And he inflicts on all of us. hell of having to live with murderers of his kind. "
Marine Le Pen wrote on her Twitter account: "A professor beheaded for presenting the Charlie Hebdo cartoons: in France, we are at this level of unbearable barbarism. Islamism is waging a war on us: it is by force that we must drive him out of our country. "
In the midst of the Charlie Hebdo attacks
Charlie Hebdo expressed on Twitter "his feeling of horror and revolt", believing that "intolerance has just crossed a new threshold".
This attack comes three weeks to the day after the chopper attack perpetrated by a 25-year-old Pakistani in front of the former Charlie Hebdo premises, which left two seriously injured.
The author of this Islamist attack had told investigators to have acted in reaction to the publication and republication by Charlie Hebdo, in early September, of cartoons of Muhammad, which had made the satirical weekly a target of the jihadists.
This republication took place at the opening, last month, of the trial of the January 2015 attacks, which is to be held until November 10.
With AFP
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