President Emmanuel Macron described a shooting that killed one and injured five in Trappes and La Verrière as racist and terrorism-related, as prosecutors investigate a possible bias motive.
Macron said the victims had been singled out on racial grounds or because of assumptions about their faith. “There is no place for this in France,” he said during a Friday meeting in Trappes with officials and residents.
French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said shots were fired at three sites across the two towns over roughly 15 minutes. They are about 30 kilometers west of Paris. The wounded included a 12-year-old girl; The Independent reported that three of the five injured had life-threatening injuries.
France’s National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (PNAT) identified the person killed as a French man born in 2000. The office said police arrested Kévin T., born in 1987, less than 20 minutes after the suspect started shooting; authorities have not disclosed his surname.
The office said his car contained a Sten-type submachine gun and a tear gas canister. Investigators also found three gas cylinders and timer-linked wiring at his apartment, it said.
The investigation covers murder connected to a terrorist enterprise and whether an aggravating factor applies because of the victim’s actual or perceived membership in a race, ethnic group, nationality or religion, the office said. These are matters under investigation, not a final finding that bias motivated the attack. EconoTimes previously covered the prosecutor’s opening of a terror probe after the shooting.
Ahead of Saturday’s cost-of-living protests, The Independent reported, the French government was preparing a larger security presence after violent unrest the week before.
