Suspect shot dead by police after teacher decapitated near Paris

16 October 2020, 21:34

France Teacher Decapitated
France Teacher Decapitated. Picture: PA

The French anti-terrorism prosecutor has opened an investigation.

A history teacher who opened a discussion with students on caricatures of Islam’s Prophet Mohammed has been decapitated in a street near Paris, a police official said.

Officers shot the suspected killer dead, the official continued.

The French anti-terrorism prosecutor has opened an investigation into Friday’s incident outside the capital.

The gruesome killing of the teacher in a middle school occurred in the town of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine while the suspect was killed by police in adjoining Eragny. The towns are located in the Val d’Oise region north west of Paris.

President Emmanuel Macron is visiting the school.

Heavily armed police sealed off the area around the school, and police vans and emergency vehicles lined leafy adjacent streets.

France Teacher Decapitated
French police officers at the scene in Conflans-Saint-Honorine, north of Paris (Michel Euler/AP)





France has the largest Muslim population in Western Europe with up to five million members, and Islam is the country’s second religion.





“We didn’t see this coming,” Conflans resident Remi Tell said on CNews TV station. He had attended the middle school where the teacher taught, Bois D’Aulne, and described the town as peaceful.




Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer tweeted that it was France itself that was attacked.

“Our unity and firmness are the only response in the face of the monstrosity of Islamist terrorism,” he tweeted.

By Press Association