France rocked by two Islamist horrors: Knifeman storms nursery and tells staff ‘I’ll rape you Jews and cut you up like in Gaza’ as cops reveal schoolgirl, 12, who threatened to kill teacher was inspired by ‘jihad’ murderer
Staff at a kindergarten in the Parisian suburb of Creteil were yesterday confronted by a knife-wielding man who threatened to kill and rape them before fleeing the scene on foot.
According to prosecutors, after finding the director of the Les minis Kids nursery, the man approached her with a 15 cm long knife and said: “You are a Jew, you are a Zionist, five of us are going to come and rape you.” you, they will cut you up like they did in Gaza,” in a dark and twisted threat.
Prosecutors said they had launched an investigation into the daycare break-in and death threats based on “race, ethnicity, nationality or religion.”
It comes just hours after a 12-year-old schoolgirl was detained by staff and police after threatening her English teacher with a knife during class at a school in Rennes.
Prosecutor Philippe Astruc said the girl later said she wanted to carry out an attack “like what happened in Arras”, referring to the October 13 extremist attack in which teacher Dominique Bernard was stabbed to death at Gambetta secondary school in northern France.
The disturbing threats come less than a week after a French court found six teenagers guilty of involvement in the 2020 beheading of Samuel Paty outside his high school near Paris after they helped identify him to a radical Islamist.
Philippe Astruc shows a knife used by a 12-year-old college student to threaten a teacher in Rennes, western France, December 13, 2023.
Staff at a kindergarten in the Parisian suburb of Creteil were yesterday confronted by a knife-wielding man who threatened to kill and rape them before fleeing the scene on foot.
This photo taken on December 13, 2023, shows the entrance to Les Hautes Ourmes school in Rennes, western France, where a 12-year-old college student threatened a teacher with a knife.
Dominique Bernard was stabbed to death at Gambetta High School in northern France on October 13.
Tensions are rising in schools in France, where there are large Muslim and Jewish communities.
Referring to the attempted knife attack on a 12-year-old girl in Rennes yesterday, Astruc said the schoolgirl “came into class armed with a large knife with the obvious intention of killing her English teacher.”
“During a classroom lesson, she swung a knife at the victim, who ran away,” before the girl was disarmed by Upper Urma High School staff, he added.
“The shocked students were immediately sent to safety,” the local education authority said.
At the press conference, Astruc showed drawings of a kitchen knife, which he said was 17 centimeters (6.7 inches) long.
The girl underwent a psychiatric examination at the hospital, which concluded that “the minor is ‘a danger to herself’ and that her condition requires care in a specialized environment,” Astruc said in a statement Wednesday.
The prosecutor had previously said that a “psychological or even psychiatric aspect” seemed to “dominate the action” of the girl.
In a separate incident last week at the Jacques Cartier school in Issou, west of Paris, a group of Muslim students threatened and accused a teacher of racism after she showed the class an Italian Renaissance painting of naked women.
She reportedly feared for her life after her name was circulated on social media as it prompted an extremist to target Paty in 2020.
Pupils reportedly expressed outrage after a teacher showed a 17th-century masterpiece, Diana and Actaeon by Italian artist Giuseppe Cesari, during an art lesson on Thursday.
The work depicts a plot from Greek mythology in which the hunter Actaeon breaks into the place where the goddess Diana and her nymphs are bathing. It depicts a nude Diana and four nude companions and is kept in the Louvre in Paris.
History and geography teacher Samuel Paty, 47, was beheaded outside a school near Paris.
Pati was brutally stabbed to death and then beheaded by 18-year-old Chechen refugee Abdullah Anzorov on October 16, 2020.
Last week, a teacher in Issou, west of Paris, “feared for her life” after she was criticized on social media for showing students the Renaissance painting Diana and Actaeon by Italian artist Giuseppe Cesari.
A sign hanging outside a school in Issou stated that incidents were occurring at the school and there were not enough resources to deal with them.
Colleagues refused to work on Monday in solidarity with the teacher as Minister Gabriel Attal visited the school and said disciplinary proceedings would be launched “against the students who are responsible for this situation and who also admitted the facts.”
Sophie Venetitay, general secretary of the secondary school teachers’ union Snes-FSU, told broadcaster BFMTV: “We know very well that such methods can lead to tragedy… We saw this with the murder of Samuel Paty.
“Our colleagues feel threatened and in danger.”
Paty, a 47-year-old history and geography teacher, was stabbed and beheaded in the Paris suburb of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine in October 2020, just 12 miles from Issou, after he was tracked down by an Islamic extremist who saw his name online. .
During a discussion about freedom of speech, Paty showed his class cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad from the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
In an email sent to parents on Friday, teachers in Issu said they were exercising their right not to attend classes due to a “particularly difficult situation” at the secondary school.
They described “perceived discomfort” and “an increase in incidents of violence” as their daily reality.
Teachers said students admitted making up mistakes in online posts, but it was too late to suppress their anger.
“We are dealing with vindictive parents who would rather believe their children than us,” they said in a statement.
Teachers at the school said the children’s behavior had been deteriorating even before the altercation, with students fighting and threatening to rape them.