The China Mail - French school killer claimed attack for Islamic State group: prosecutor

Friday's attack, in combination with the surge in Middle East tensions after Hamas' October 7 attack on Israel and Israeli reprisals, has jangled nerves in France and put the country on high alert for further violence.

The suspected attacker, Mohammed Moguchkov, 20, a Russian citizen from the mainly Muslim northern Caucasus, was brought before an anti-terror judge who will decide whether to charge and remand him in custody ahead of trial.

His 16-year-old brother and 15-year-old cousin, suspected of providing assistance before he fatally knifed teacher Dominique Bernard, 57, at his former school in Arras, northern France, were also appearing before the judge.

Anti-terrorist prosecutors have opened a probe into terrorist conspiracy, murder as part of a terrorist plot and related charges.

Moguchkov had "sworn allegiance to the Islamic State" in a long audio recording, prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard told reporters in Paris, adding that further information had been gleaned from people close to him and a video recorded before the assault.

A source familiar with the case said he had made a "very marginal" reference to the conflict concerning Gaza in a video following the attack on Israel by Hamas.

The killing of Bernard has shocked people in France. It comes almost three years to the day after the beheading of teacher Samuel Paty outside Paris on October 16, 2020.

That murder was carried out by an Islamist radical from Russia's southern region of Chechnya, which borders the Ingushetia region where Moguchkov was born.

- Bomb threats -

France again raised its security level after Friday's attack, deploying 7,000 troops.

Adding to the tension, the Arras high school was evacuated on Monday over a bomb threat, which proved to be a false alarm.

On Tuesday, the Palace of Versailles -- one of France's most recognisable historic landmarks -- was also evacuated after a bomb threat, according to a post from its account on X (formerly Twitter) and a source familiar with the case.

The palace had received a similar threat on Saturday.

Following the shooting on Monday in the Belgian capital, Brussels, of two Swedes by a Tunisian man also claiming inspiration from Islamic State, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday: "All European states are vulnerable... There is a return of this Islamist terrorism."

"We all have a vulnerability. It's what comes with being a democracy, a rule-of-law state where there are individuals who can decide at a given moment to commit the worst acts," Macron told reporters in the Albanian capital, Tirana.

He nevertheless added that he had seen "no failures" by French security services ahead of the stabbing in Arras.

Macron's government has brought forward to December the parliamentary debate on an already planned immigration bill, flagging it as a response to the dangers of terrorism.

The French leader has told ministers to "embody a state that is ruthless towards all those who harbour hate and terrorist ideologies".

- 'Sanctuary' schools -

He wrote in a social media post on Monday that schools would remain a "bulwark" against extremism and "a sanctuary for our pupils and everyone who works there".

Macron's office said he would attend schoolteacher Bernard's funeral on Thursday.

France, which has sizeable Muslim and Jewish populations, has been on the alert for violence since Hamas's attack on Israel.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said on Monday that 102 people had been arrested for anti-Semitic acts or expressing support for terrorism since the October 7 assault.

Moguchkov, who reportedly arrived in France aged five, was already on a French national register as a potential security threat and under surveillance by France's domestic intelligence agency, the DGSI.

His father, who was also on the list, was deported in 2018.

Macron has called on police to comb through their files of radicalised people who could be deported.

Darmanin said 193 such cases would be re-examined.

Macron has told Darmanin to focus especially on "young men between the ages of 16 and 25 from the Caucasus", his aide said.

P.Deng--ThChM