Teacher, who took class on Prophet Mohammed cartoons, beheaded on Paris street
Media reports said a Chechen Muslim shouting 'Allah O Akbar' beheaded the history teacher who had recently given a class on secularism and the controversy surrounding the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed by satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
Nine people are being questioned by the French authorities after a school teacher was beheaded in broad daylight on the street in a Paris suburb.
Media reports said a Chechen Muslim shouting 'Allah O Akbar' beheaded the history teacher who had recently given a class on secularism and the controversy surrounding the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed by satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
The gruesome crime happened near a middle school in the town of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine. The suspect was later shot dead by the police in adjoining town of Eragny.
French President Emmanuel Macron, who later visited the school where the teacher worked, termed the beheading as an 'Islamic terrorist attack.
Macron said, "One of our compatriots was murdered today because he taught. The freedom of expression, the freedom to believe or not believe."
"Terrorists will not divide France, obscurantism will not prevail," he added.
Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer said on Twitter, "Our unity and our resolve are the only responses faced with the monstrosity of Islamist terrorism."
The incident came barely a month after a 25-year-old Pakistani man attacked two people with a meat cleaver over the Charlie Hebdo cartoons.