France on edge as security level raised

France is on a high security alert and the government has deployed 7,000 troops nationwide in response to a fatal school stabbing by a suspected extremist in the north of the country on Friday.

France's Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne announced that France would be on an urgent terrorist alert until the level of risk could be properly assessed, and Education Minister Gabriel Attal said security would be reinforced in all schools.

Amid the heightened threat situation, written bomb threats received by Paris police led to the evacuation of the iconic Louvre Museum and Versailles Palace on Saturday.

French media reported that a Russian-born man of Chechen origin, under surveillance by security services over suspected Islamic radicalization, fatally stabbed a teacher and severely wounded three other adults at the Gambetta-Carnot school in Arras.

The teacher, Dominique Bernard, 57, died in the courtyard of the school from several wounds to the neck.

Authorities said video evidence showed that around 11 am, a man wielding a knife attacked people in the school courtyard, critically injuring a PE teacher, a school security guard, and a canteen staff member, one of whom had tried to fend him off with a chair.

In a news briefing, Jean-Francois Ricard, France's anti-terrorist prosecutor, said several witnesses had heard the suspect shout "Allahu Akbar", or "God is greatest", as he attacked staff .

Ricard confirmed the suspect, a former pupil at the school, was known to have been in phone contact with his older brother, who had been found guilty of two terror-related offences and sentenced to five years and 18 months in prison in April.

In a television interview on Friday, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said he believed there was a connection between the attack in Arras and the outbreak of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Investigators confirmed the suspect had been detained Thursday for questioning based on the monitoring of his phone calls in recent days. But they had found no sign that he was preparing an attack, Darmanin said.

"There was a race against the clock. But there was no threat, no weapon, no indication. We did our job seriously," Darmanin said on TF1 television.

France has suffered a series of Islamist attacks over the years, including the November 2015 Paris attacks on entertainment venues, and the beheading of teacher Samuel Paty by a Chechen teenager in 2020.

France has sizeable Muslim and Jewish communities, and there has been rising tension between the two, reported the BBC.

France's President Emmanuel Macron traveled to Arras to express his support for the victims' families and school staff. He condemned the attack as "barbaric Islamic terrorism".

"The teacher who was killed intervened first. He undoubtedly saved many lives. His seriously injured colleague and the staff who were also seriously injured showed the same courage. But so did the headteacher and many others in that moment," Macron said.

"I am here to show the nation's support. To say that we are united and that we are standing firm… The choice has been made not to give in to terror, not to allow anything to divide us."