French schools hold minute of silence for slain teacher

French middle and high schools in France held a minute of silence on Monday to honor the memory of a teacher who was stabbed to death by a former student in the city of Arras.

Dominique Bernard was a teacher at a high school, the Lycee Gambetta, in Arras. He was stabbed by a 20-year-old Russian national from the southern Caucasus region of Chechnya, who had been a resident of France since childhood.

Prosecutors say the alleged assailant repeatedly shouted "Allahu akbar," the Arabic phrase for "God is great," during the attack.

Another teacher and a security guard were also attacked and are now in critical condition with wounds from the stabbing, local police said.

Counterterrorism authorities said the suspected assailant and several others were in custody. The 20-year-old former student had been under recent surveillance by intelligence services for radicalization.

Teachers discuss attack with students

The high school, Lycee Gambetta, was also evacuated on Monday over a bomb threat, although officials later said the alert had been lifted.

Meanwhile, across the country, classes paused for the minute of silence at 2:00 pm (1200 UTC), as early lessons were canceled in middle and high schools to allow teachers and students to discuss the attack and how to respond to it.

The attack in Arras comes almost three years to the day after a similar took place near Paris when teacher Samuel Paty was beheaded outside his school, causing shock to the public and triggering a massive security response.

French President Emmanuel Macron has said that schools would remain a "bulwark" against extremism and "a sanctuary for our pupils and everyone who works there" in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

Macron holds security meeting

In the aftermath of the stabbing, the French government heightened the national threat alert and ordered up to 7,000 soldiers to be deployed by Monday night and until further notice.

Macron was set to attend a summit on the Western Balkans in Tirana, Albania, but cut short his trip to hold a security meeting with the country's prime minister, key government members, as well as top military and counterterrorism officials. 

Education Minister Gabriel Attal has said that 168 bomb threats in French schools have been reported since the beginning of September, something he called "intolerable and unacceptable." 

Macron urged police authorities to search through their files of radicalized people who could be deported.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said on Monday that the government was looking to accelerate the expulsion of 193 radicalized foreign nationals who had entered the country irregularly. 

jcg/msh (AP, AFP, Reuters)