The knife attack left one dead and three injured at the Gambetta-Carnot school complex in Arras (Pas-de-Calais). Nine people, including the main suspect and his 16-year-old brother, were taken into police custody.
A man armed with knives killed a teacher and injured three in the Gambetta-Carnot school campus in Arras (Pas-de-Calais) on Friday October 13 in the morning. Dominique Bernard, 57-year-old literature professor, is dead. The vital prognosis of the three other injured people is no longer in jeopardy at this time.
The prosecution requested the indictment and provisional detention for the 20-year-old attacker, Mohammed M., as well as for his 16-year-old brother, suspected of having “provided some support in his deadly project”. Since Friday, one hundred witnesses have been heard and thirteen people have been taken into police custody.
This attack occurred almost three years to the day after the assassination of Samuel Paty, a 47-year-old teacher who was beheaded on October 16, 2020 near his college in Yvelines, after showing his students caricatures of Mohammed during lessons on freedom of expression.
An attack around 11 a.m.
It was around 11 a.m. when Mohammed M., armed with knives, burst into the Gambetta-Carnot school campus, which has a middle school and a high school, located on avenue Carnot, in Arras (Pas-de-Calais). He stabbed two teachers and two technical agents. One of the victims, a French teacher at the college, died. The attack was shared on several videos on social networks. We see the main suspect, wearing black pants and a gray jacket, in the courtyard of the establishment threatening then beating to the ground men who try to control him, some protecting themselves with a chair to keep him at bay. The main suspect shouted “God is great”.
Jean-François Ricard, prosecutor of the national anti-terrorism prosecution, clarified how the events unfolded. Mohammed M. first “presented in front of the high school […] He hit a teacher who was in front of this establishment with a knife. A second teacher came to help his colleague; he in turn was hit with a knife.” The man then entered the high school where he began “an adventure” in the court. That’s where he hurt “a technical agent” And “a maintenance worker”, said Jean-François Ricard. He then turned back and headed towards the back of the courtyard. It was there that he was arrested by the police, who used “twice” their Taser gun.
A high school teacher, Martin Dousseau, a philosophy professor, described a panic during the break, when the students of the school campus found themselves facing a man armed, according to his testimony, with two knives. “He attacked canteen staff, he was chasing him and threatening him with a knife. He had already apparently hit him because this chef had blood on his hands and actually seemed injured. I wanted to go down to intervene, he turned to me, chased me and asked me if I was a history-geography teacher. We barricaded ourselves, then the police arrived and immobilized him.”.
A French teacher killed and three injured
Dominique Bernard, a 57-year-old French teacher, was killed in this attack. He was the father of three daughters, details France Inter. He was an associate professor of modern literature and had taught French at the Gambetta-Carnot school campus since the 1980s. His partner is also a teacher in the Pas-de-Calais department. His colleagues present him as a “lover of literature”, very present for others and very courageous. The funeral of Dominique Bernard will take place Thursday at Arras Cathedral, in the presence of Emmanuel Macron.
The three other people injured are a PE teacher, a technical agent and a maintenance agent from the Gambetta high school in Arras. Their vital prognosis is no longer in jeopardy to this day, according to the anti-terrorism public prosecutor, Jean-François Ricard, during a press conference on Tuesday. During the tribute paid to Dominique Bernard on Monday October 16, the president of the region Xavier Bertrand (LR) indicated that the most seriously affected, a technical agent, was “out of trouble” and “should come out of intensive care” in “the days that come“, and the injured PE teacher “will take time to recover” but “His days are not in danger”. The third, an agent, returned to work.
The main suspect, Mohammed M., was on S file and “pledged allegiance” to the Islamic State organization
Mohammed M., the main suspect in the attack, was arrested the same day of the attack. He is a former student of the establishment, on file S, born in Russia, aged 20. He had been monitored since this summer by the DGSI, France Télévisions learned from a source close to intelligence.
Placed under wiretap and physical surveillance, he had been checked the day before the attack. Nothing could be blamed on him during this check, affirms this same source, and the tapping of his recent telephone conversations did not suggest that he was going to take action. According to Julie Duhamel, Pas-de-Calais departmental secretary of the Unsa teaching union interviewed on franceinfo, “there had been a case put together by the teaching team regarding his radicalization a few years ago now”.
According to information from franceinfo, the suspect made a video and an audio claiming allegiance to ISIS before the attack. According to the anti-terrorism public prosecutor, in this audio the suspect “develops his hatred of France, of the French, of democracy and of the education from which he had benefited in our country”. Another point detailed by the prosecutor, the fact that in this message Mohammed M. mentions “his support for Muslims in Iraq, Asia, Palestine” but does not link “his act directly to recent events in Israel”. Regarding the video, we see the suspect filming himself in front of a war memorial in Arras. According to Jean-François Ricard, it lasts 30 seconds and was filmed 20 minutes before the events.
Indictment and pre-trial detention required for Mohammed M., as well as for his brother
On the day of the attack, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (Pnat) took action and opened an investigation, notably for “assassination in connection with a terrorist enterprise”. The investigations were entrusted to the anti-terrorist sub-directorate of the national directorate of the judicial police, the national directorate of the judicial police and the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI). Since Friday, one hundred witnesses have been heard and thirteen people have been taken into police custody. The mother and sister of Mohammed M. were interviewed by the investigators, then released. His sister described her brother to investigators as the most violent and radicalized in the family.
The prosecution requested the indictment and provisional detention for Mohammed M., as well as for his 16-year-old brother, suspected of having “provided some support in his deadly project”particularly on “handling knives”, indicated the anti-terrorism public prosecutor, Jean-François Ricard in his press briefing on Tuesday, October 17. The two brothers will be presented to the investigating judge, as well as a “cousin of this sibling”aged 15, who would have been “informed of the project” without “do nothing to prevent it”.
According to information from franceinfo, Maxime C., a radicalized prisoner, spoke with the main suspect. Mohammed M. had exchanges with Maxime C. via letters and social networks on their religious faith but not on the Arras attack on Friday. Maxime C. is not being prosecuted at this stage of the investigations. He was taken back to prison from where he had been taken into custody. The National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (Pnat) requested the opening of a judicial investigation for “criminal terrorist association”, “assassination in relation to a terrorist enterprise”, “complicity” in these last two crimes and “voluntary abstention from committing a crime”.
The Arras establishment reopened on Saturday for students and teachers “who wish”
At the time of the attack, the bell rang in the establishment, the students and staff of the high school were confined while awaiting police intervention. A large security perimeter was established around the establishment, where the police, firefighters and emergency services were deployed. All schools in the city were then confined, franceinfo learned from a union source.
The students recounted the extreme and very serious worry they experienced during more than an hour when they were confined in their classroom. Some were “very very panicked, in tears and others very very calm, it surprises everyone”, says a high school student confined with several dozen students in the conference room of the school campus.
The students of the Gambetta school complex began to leave the establishment after 1 p.m., noted a journalist from France Bleu Nord on site. Many did not directly witness the scene of the fatal attack, but they heard the screams and the police who quickly intervened. The city of Arras has set up a crisis unit to monitor the event. According to Emmanuel Macron, the principal decided to reopen the premises on Saturday for students and teachers “who wishes”.
The Assembly suspended its work, Emmanuel Macron on site
Emmanuel Macron traveled to Arras. The Head of State praised the courage of the killed teacher who “undoubtedly saved many lives himself”. He insisted on “pay tribute to all our teachers” And “welcomed the responsiveness of all internal security services”. The president called on the French on Friday to stay “United” and to “stand together” in the face of “the barbarity of Islamist terrorism”.
The Minister of Education Gabriel Attal will bring together all the teachers’ union organizations on Friday evening on rue de Grenelle after the murder of one of their number on Friday morning in a high school in Arras. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, for her part, canceled a trip planned to Orléans to go to Paris and all the ministers are canceling their trip planned for Friday, franceinfo learned from Matignon.
At the National Assembly, deputies respected a minute of silence to express their solidarity “faced with horror” and the victims of the attack. “The events which took place this morning in a high school in Arras have seized us all with fear”declared the vice-president of the Assembly Naïma Moutchou, expressing “the emotion of the national representation in the face of the horror of these acts, as well as our thoughts and our solidarity towards the victims and their families”.
The Minister of Education Gabriel Attal and his Interior counterpart Gérald Darmanin asked on Friday to immediately strengthen the security of all educational establishments in France. “Any situation must be reported immediately” to the address of the ministerial crisis unit, specifies Gabriel Attal in a message to the rectors.