French school where teacher was stabbed to death by knifeman 'shouting Allahu Akbar' is evacuated due to bomb threat

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A school in northern France where a teacher was stabbed to death by a knifeman who allegedly shouted 'Allahu Akbar' was today evacuated after a bomb threat. 

Dozens of staff and pupils left the Gambetta middle and high school in the northern city of Arras around 10:30am (9.30am GMT) after police received a threat via its website.

But a bomb disposal team, including sniffer dogs, found no sign of a bomb and several hundreds of students and teachers could be seen going back into the high school this afternoon. 

It comes as schools across France are today set to hold a minute of silence for French language teacher Dominique Bernard, who was allegedly stabbed to death by Mohamed Mogouchkov, a Chechen refugee aged 20.

Mogouchkov reportedly shouted 'Allahu Akbar' before launching his attack on Bernard, 57, on Friday, prompting a French president Emmanuel Macron to call for a 'ruthless' approach towards extremists in France. 

Bernard's murder came on the same day leaders of Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group behind ruthless attacks in Israel, called on Muslims across the world to demonstrate on a 'day of Jihad'.

The knife attack, almost three years to the day after a similar killing outside Paris, has shocked teachers and members of the public. It has caused a massive security response and prompted France to increase its attack alert level.

Rescue workers wait in front the Gambetta high school during a bomb alert on Monday in Arras, northern France. 

A French police officer and a police dog enter the Gambetta high school during its evacuation after a bomb threat in Arras on Monday. But a bomb disposal team, including sniffer dogs, found no sign of a bomb and several hundreds of students and teachers could be seen going back into the high school this afternoon.

A video shows a confrontation between two men in the grounds of the school in the northern French city 

This handout photo released by an anonymous source on October 13, 2023, shows the suspected perpetrator (C) of a knife attack being escorted by a policeman outside of the Gambetta high school in the town of Arras, northern France

Friday's attack has further increased nervousness in France, which has large Muslim and Jewish populations and has been on the alert for violence since Hamas launched its attack on Israel, killing 1,300 Israelis.

Today, at the school where Bernard was stabbed alongside three others, classes were expected to pause for a minute of silence at 2pm (1pm GMT) to remember Bernard in schools across France. 

Early lessons were cancelled in middle and high schools on Monday to allow teachers to discuss the attack and how to deal with it in front of pupils. 

Nevertheless, 'we will not allow terrorism to bring our country to a standstill', Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said on Monday. 

Macron would chair a new national security meeting later on Monday, the Elysee said. 

Bernard was killed almost three years to the day after teacher Samuel Paty was beheaded outside his school in a Paris suburb, on October 16, 2020.

Paty's killer and the suspected Arras assailant share a background in Russia's North Caucasus region. 

Moguchkov, who arrived in France at the age of five, reportedly cried 'Allahu akbar!' meaning 'God is greatest' during the attack. He has been detained but has not yet spoken, according to a police source.

He was already on a French national register as a potential security threat and under electronic and physical surveillance by France's domestic intelligence agency, the DGSI. His father, who was also on the list, was deported in 2018. 

Mogouchkov's brother, who was also taken into custody, is said to have spent 18 months in prison for distributing ISIS propaganda online, and Mogouchkov was also a known ISIS sympathiser, sources said.

French military servicemen, deployed as part of the ongoing 'Operation Sentinelle', stand guard in front of the Gambetta high school during its evacuation after a bomb threat in Arras, northeastern France today

French police and firefighters stand in front of the Gambetta-Carnot school, where French teacher Dominique Bernard was killed in a knife attack on Friday, after the school was evacuated following a bomb alert in Arras on Monday

A team of the French SAMU (Service for Urgent Medical Help) stands in front of the Gambetta high school during its evacuation after a bomb threat in Arras on Monday

Police officers and rescue workers by the Gambetta high school during the bomb alert 

A psychiatrist of the French SAMU (Service for Urgent Medical Help) waits in front of the Gambetta high school during its evacuation after a bomb threat in Arras on Monday

Police officers stand in front of the Gambetta high school during the bomb alert on Monday

Sliman Hamzi, a police officer who was one of the first on the scene said Mogouchkov, an ex-pupil at the school, shouted: 'Allahu Akbar.'

Mr Hamzi said he was alerted by another officer who was passing the school and called in. He 'was shouting, "someone is attacking with a knife",' he said.

'Colleagues arrived quickly but unfortunately couldn't save the victim,' Mr Hamzi added. 

Fabien Dufay, a PE teacher at the school, said he had taught Mogouchkov in his final year 'three years ago'.

He described him as a 'reserved, calm student with whom I had completely normal conversations'.

The attacker 'had two knives in his hands,' says another teacher at the school, who asked not to be named.

'He turned to me and said, "Are you a history teacher? Are you a history teacher?",' said the teacher, who then hid behind a glass door.

He added: 'It was only when I left that I was able to see that the attack was much more serious than I thought. Someone was dead in front of the school.'

Clips of what appear to be the attack circulated by students on social media show how a man appears to lunge at victims in the courtyard.

One of the victims holds a chair between himself and the attacker to defend himself but is ultimately bundled to the ground and sustains several blows.

Pupils barricaded themselves in classrooms and were told to stay inside. 

The attack was the result of 'barbaric Islamist terrorism', President Macron told reporters at the scene on Friday, but added that police had helped avoid another attempted attack elsewhere in France.

French President Emmanuel Macron arrives at the Gambetta high school in Arras on Friday, October 13, following the knife attack 

A pupil is comforted by a relative as he leaves Gambetta high school in Arras on October 13, where a teacher was killed and two others were severely wounded

Police investigate following the stabbing at the school in Arras on Friday morning

'The teacher who was killed had come forward to protect others and had without doubt saved many lives,' said Macron.

The French president has since called on police to comb through their files of radicalised people who could be deported from France to make sure no one has been overlooked.

He has also told ministers to 'embody a state that is ruthless towards all those who harbour hate and terrorist ideologies', a senior aide told reporters.

They added that Macron has told the interior minister to take a 'special approach to young men between the ages of 16 and 25 from the Caucasus'. 

The French President later wrote that schools would remain a 'bulwark' against extremism and 'a sanctuary for our pupils and everyone who works there'. 

Friday's killing has led to calls for tighter security at schools. The government has already put the country on high alert and deployed 7,000 troops.

More than 260 people have been killed in France since 2012 in assaults blamed on, or claimed by, Islamist radicals – from mass killings in Paris and Nice in 2015 and 2016, to individual murders of teachers, police officers or a priest.

Three years ago, Paty was beheaded by 18-year-old Abdullah Anzorov, a radicalised refugee born in Moscow to ethnic Chechen parents. Chechnya is a predominantly Muslim republic in Russia's Caucasus region.

Bernard was killed almost three years to the day after teacher Samuel Paty (pictured) was beheaded outside his school in a Paris suburb, on October 16, 2020

Anzorov, who had come to France as a six-year-old, was shot dead by police at the scene.

Friday's attack also comes with tensions rising in France, which has large Jewish and Muslim communities, after last weekend's attack by Hamas on Israel.

Macron said in an address to the nation on Thursday that 582 religious and cultural facilities in France were receiving stepped-up police protection.

'Those who confuse the Palestinian cause and the justification of terrorism commit a strong moral, political and strategic error,' he said.

There has also been controversy over the French government's ban on pro-Palestinian protests following the Hamas attacks, with the Left claiming it was no longer possible to protest for peace but the Right saying the measures did not go far enough.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin on Thursday ordered that the demonstrations be prohibited nationwide as they 'are likely to generate disturbances to public order', adding that organisers should face arrest.

And today, France's National Assembly speaker Yael Braun-Pivet, who belongs to Macron's Renaissance party, said a draft immigration law should be voted through 'by the end of the year'.

The bill provides that 'people who are not integrated, who are radicalised, who swear ferocious hatred against the [French] republic... must indeed be able to be removed', she told broadcaster France 2.

Resistance to the draft law has come from conservative Republicans, who reject other provisions allowing for the regularisation of some migrants without residence permits.

This is the latest incidence of what appears to be a growing problem of knife violence in France.

In June this year, a knifeman stabbed four children at a lakeside park in the French Alps, assaulting at least one in a stroller repeatedly.

The attacker, a 31-year-old Christian Syrian refugee with permanent Swedish residency, mentioned his daughter, his wife and Jesus Christ during the attack in the lakeside town of Annecy.

The stabbing follows a series of bomb, gun and knife attacks carried out by Islamic State and al-Qaeda operatives in France, dating back to early 2015.

The deadliest single terrorist attack ever in the country came in November 2015 when 130 people were killed in Paris after suicide bombers pledging allegiance to ISIS targeted the Stade de France, cafes, restaurants and the Bataclan music venue, where 90 died.

This is a breaking news story, more to follow...