TEACHER BEHEADED AFTER SHOWING CARTOONS OF PROPHET MUHAMMAD

PARIS— A French middle school history teacher who earlier showed his pupils cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad was beheaded by a Chechen man near the school where he taught, officials said on Friday.

Showing cartoons of Muhammad is considered blasphemous by Muslims, officials said.

The 18-year-old attacker was shot dead by police a few streets away from the scene of the attack late on Friday afternoon, in a residential suburb northwest of Paris.

“One of our fellow citizens was assassinated today because he was teaching pupils about freedom of expression,” French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters at the scene of the attack.

Flagrant attack

“Our compatriot was flagrantly attacked, was the victim of an Islamist terrorist attack,” Macron said. “They won’t win ... We will act. Firmly, and quickly. You can count on my determination.”

The incident carried echoes of the attack five years ago on the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. It published caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, unleashing divisions that are still casting a pall over French society.

Friday’s killing, by targeting a teacher, was interpreted by many public figures as an attack on the essence of French statehood, with the values it espouses of secularism, freedom of worship, and freedom of expression.

“This evening, it’s the Republic that’s under attack,” Education Minister Jean-michel Blanquer wrote in a tweet.

The victim of Friday’s attack sustained multiple knife wounds to the neck, according to a police representative. One source said the teacher had been beheaded.

No names

A judicial source said the suspected attacker was from the Russian region of Chechnya. Law enforcement officials did not name the attacker, or his victim.

According to a police source, witnesses heard the attacker shout “Allahu Akbar,” or “God is Great” during the assault in the street in front of the middle school where the victim worked, in the suburb of Conflans Sainte-honorine.

French media said the teacher earlier this month showed pupils the cartoons as part of a civics lesson.

A Twitter thread posted on Oct. 9 contained a video of a man who said his daughter, a Muslim, was one of the pupils in the class, and that she was shocked and upset by the teacher’s actions.