France deploying 7,000 soldiers to boost security after deadly school attack

French police stand at the entrance of the Gambetta-Carnot public school where Dominique Bernard, a teacher, was fatally stabbed (Picture: Getty)

France will mobilise up to 7,000 soldiers to boost security around the country after a teacher was stabbed to death in an Islamist attack.

Emmanuel Macron increased the national threat alert on Friday after the attack at a school in the northern city of Arras, which came amid global tensions over the Israel-Hamas war.

The president’s office said the soldiers would be mobilised by Monday evening until further notice as part of an ongoing operation that regularly conducts patrols in major city centres and tourist sites.

The announcement was made as the Louvre museum and Versailles Palace, both major tourist draws in the French capital, were evacuated over bomb threats.

Interior Ministry spokeswoman Camille Chaize said checks were being made to establish there was no danger.

The latest security alert comes as France hosts the Rugby World Cup and less than a year before Paris welcomes the Olympic Games, which include plans for an unprecedented opening ceremony outside a stadium and a parade down the river Seine.

Chaize said security measures were already at their highest level at the stadium used for the rugby matches but extra patrols would be added at a fanzone nearby and in central Paris.

France has been targeted by a series of Islamist attacks over the years, the worst being a simultaneous assault by gunmen and suicide bombers on entertainment venues and cafes in Paris in November 2015.

Education and Youth Minister Gabriel Attal arrives to the Gambetta high school in Arras (Picture: Lafargue Raphael/ABACA/Shutterstock)

The Interior Ministry said the security situation would be reviewed at a meeting on Saturday afternoon to decide whether additional measures are necessary.

For many in France, this week’s attack echoed the killing of another teacher, Samuel Paty, almost exactly three years ago near his Paris area school.

He was beheaded by a radicalized Chechen later killed by police.

The suspect in the latest attack had been under surveillance since the summer on suspicion of Islamic radicalization, French intelligence services told AP.

He was detained Thursday for questioning based on the monitoring of his phone calls in recent days, but investigators found no sign that he was preparing an attack, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said.

Armed police patrol as parents and their children leave the Gambetta-Carnot public school (Picture: Getty)

French intelligence suggested a link between the war in the Middle East and the suspect’s decision to attack, he added.

He said authorities have detained 12 people near schools or places of worship since the Hamas attack on Israel, some of whom were armed and were preparing to act.

The prosecutor said the alleged assailant was a former student there and repeatedly shouted ‘Allahu akbar’, or ‘God is great’, during the attack.

Prosecutors are considering charges of terrorism-related murder and attempted murder against the suspect.

The slain teacher was named as Dominique Bernard, a French language teacher at the Gambetta-Carnot school, which enrols students ages 11-18.

Another teacher and a security guard were in critical condition with wounds from the stabbing, police said. The counterterrorism prosecutor said a cleaning worker was also injured.

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Macron said the teacher died trying to ‘protect’ pupils at City School Gambetta-Carnot in Arras and in doing so ‘saved many lives’.

Announcing that the school would reopen Saturday, he urged the people of France to ‘stay united’.

‘The choice has been made not to give in to terror,’ he said.

‘We must not let anything divide us, and we must remember that schools and the transmission of knowledge are at the heart of this fight against ignorance.’

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