School killings shock France
Gunman shoots teacher and three kids
TOULOUSE: A suspected serial killer shot dead three children and a teacher at a Jewish school in France in what was branded an anti-semitic attack, plunging the nation into shock.
President Nicolas Sarkozy declared the murders a “national tragedy” as anti-terror police probed the third fatal shooting involving a gunmen wielding what police said was the same pistol in the Toulouse area in recent days.
France stepped up security at Jewish and Muslim schools following the assault on the Ozar Hatorah school yesterday, which local parents, rights groups and the government denounced as an anti-semitic atrocity.
Two boys aged three and six and their father, a 30-year-old religious studies teacher whom witnesses said tried to protect them, were gunned down, along with the 10-yearold daughter of the director of the school.
The gunman opened fire on a crowd as children and teachers arrived for class in the morning, then charged on to school grounds. A fifth victim, a 17-year-old boy, was in critical condition.
The killer escaped on what witnesses said was a powerful scooter.
Last week, three French paratroopers – all of North African descent – were killed in two similar incidents in the same region, also involving a scooter rider wielding the same powerful .45 calibre handgun.
The attack was the first of its kind apparently targeting Jews since the Rue des Rosiers
A man on a powerful scooter or a motorbike dismounted and shot at everything he could see. At children as well as adults. — MICHEL VALET
massacre in 1982, in which six people died a shooting at a restaurant in Paris’s most famous Jewish district.
Campaigning in France’s presidential election was effectively suspended, while both the right-wing incumbent Sarkozy and his Socialist rival Francois Hollande rushed to Toulouse to pay their respects.
The president said that while the inquiry was proceeding with caution, he had been struck by the apparent links between the three shootings.
Paris anti-terrorist prosecutors took charge of all three probes.
The Ozar Hatorah association runs a small religious school for 200 people in a quiet suburb of Toulouse, a large city with a 25,000strong Jewish minority.
Local prosecutor Michel Valet said: “Shortly before 8am, a man on a powerful scooter or a motorbike dismounted and shot at everything he could see. At children as well as adults.” — AFP