The killing of a teacher at a school in France was a terror attack, Emmanuel Macron has said.
The president added that police had helped thwart another attempted attack elsewhere in France today.
The teacher was stabbed to death at the Lycee Gambetta secondary school in Arras, in the north of the country.
Two other people, including another teacher and a security guard, were seriously injured and were fighting for their lives in hospital following the knife attack.
Image: French President Emmanuel Macron speaks to the media after the knife attack. Pic: AP
A suspect, believed to be a former student at the school, has been arrested. One of his brothers was also detained nearby.
The suspect was reported to be in his 20s, Russian-born and of Chechen origin, and was on a watchlist of people known to be at risk of radicalisation.
He had been under surveillance since the summer and was stopped as recently as Thursday for a police check which found no wrongdoing, the French intelligence services said.
Teacher ‘saved many lives’
“The teacher who was killed had come forward to protect others and had without doubt saved many lives,” said Mr Macron after visiting the school.
He called the attack an act of “barbaric Islamist terrorism” and said the school would reopen on Saturday, adding: “Our choice is made not to give in to terror, not to let anything divide us.”
The victim has been named by local media as Dominique Bernard, a French language teacher.
Mr Macron did not give more details of the second attempted attack, but police said a man armed with a knife was arrested coming out of a prayer hall in the Yvelines region west of Paris. The man’s motives were not immediately clear.
Image: French police secure the scene in Arras
A police officer, who was one of the first on the scene of Friday’s attack in Arras, said the suspect shouted “Allahu Akbar” – which means “God is great” in Arabic – before the stabbing.
Residents have been advised by local authorities to avoid the centre of the city, which is about 30 miles south of Lille.
Students were reportedly locked down in the school during the incident.
None of the children were physically harmed during the attack, according to reports.
Arras is shocked and bewildered and wants answers
In the heart of Arras, not far from a pedestrianised shopping precinct, there are hundreds of armed police officers.
French President Emmanuel Macron has come to town, along with two of his most trusted lieutenants – the interior and education ministers.
But the atmosphere is one of shock and sadness.
As I arrive, guided through a police cordon, I see a man walking away, his arm draped around his subdued teenage daughter.
The Lycee Gambetta stands ahead of us. It is a forgettable building, softened by tall trees. But now, it is surrounded by police vans and incident tape.
What happened at the school was horrendous – a knife attack of particular savagery that has shaken people here.
I spoke to one student outside the school, a thoughtful sixth-former called Remi.
He told me Arras was a quiet, safe town. “I’d say it was chilled,” he said – and that he had been shocked when he heard the news of the attack: “Why would you do something like that? Why would have so little value for a human life?”
The question is why?
Why did this man do something so brutal? Was it an isolated incident, was it inspired by the conflict in the Middle East, or by the ongoing resonance of the murder of Samuel Paty, almost exactly three years ago.
Was he motivated by Islamist fury, or by some other grievance. Arras, like the French nation, wants answers but at the moment, this town reverberates simply to shock, bewilderment and sadness.
‘We ran’
Local media quoted one pupil as saying: “We came out of class to go to the canteen, and we saw the guy with two knives attacking the teacher, who had blood on him.
“He tried to calm him down and protect us. He told us to get out, but we didn’t understand. We ran, and others went back upstairs.”
A security alert was sparked later at another school in Arras.
A third man was reportedly arrested in that incident, when he tried to enter the school with a suspicious rucksack.
Education Minister Gabriel Attal has urged schools across France to “immediately take all measures” to increase security.
Naima Moutchou, a vice president of France’s National Assembly, expressed “solidarity and thoughts for the victims, their families and the educational community” on behalf of the assembly’s representatives.
Global financial markets gave a clear vote of no-confidence in President Trump’s economic policy.
The damage it will do is obvious: costs for companies will rise, hitting their earnings.
The consequences will ripple throughout the global economy, with economists now raising their expectations for a recession, not only in the US, but across the world.
The court ruled to uphold the impeachment saying the conservative leader “violated his duty as commander-in-chief by mobilising troops” when he declared martial law.
The president was also said to have taken actions “beyond the powers provided in the constitution”.
Image: Demonstrators stayed overnight near the constitutional court. Pic: AP
Supporters and opponents of the president gathered in their thousands in central Seoul as they awaited the ruling.
The 64-year-old shocked MPs, the public and international allies in early December when he declared martial law, meaning all existing laws regarding civilians were suspended in place of military law.
Image: The court was under heavy police security guard ahead of the announcement. Pic: AP
After suddenly declaring martial law, Mr Yoon sent hundreds of soldiers and police officers to the National Assembly.
He has argued that he sought to maintain order, but some senior military and police officers sent there have told hearings and investigators that Mr Yoon ordered them to drag out politicians to prevent an assembly vote on his decree.
His presidential powers were suspended when the opposition-dominated assembly voted to impeach him on 14 December, accusing him of rebellion.
The unanimous verdict to uphold parliament’s impeachment and remove Mr Yoon from office required the support of at least six of the court’s eight justices.
South Korea must hold a national election within two months to find a new leader.
Lee Jae-myung, leader of the main liberal opposition Democratic Party, is the early favourite to become the country’s next president, according to surveys.
While the UK’s FTSE 100 closed down 1.55% and the continent’s STOXX Europe 600 index was down 2.67% as of 5.30pm, it was American traders who were hit the most.
All three of the US’s major markets opened to sharp losses on Thursday morning.
Image: The S&P 500 is set for its worst day of trading since the COVID-19 pandemic. File pic: AP
By 8.30pm UK time (3.30pm EST), The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 3.7%, the S&P 500 opened with a drop of 4.4%, and the Nasdaq composite was down 5.6%.
Compared to their values when Donald Trump was inaugurated, the three markets were down around 5.6%, 8.7% and 14.4%, respectively, according to LSEG.
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As Wall Street trading ended at 9pm in the UK, two indexes had suffered their worst one-day losses since the COVID-19 pandemic.
The S&P 500 fell 4.85%, the Nasdaq dropped 6%, and the Dow Jones fell 4%.
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White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNN earlier in the day that Mr Trump was “doubling down on his proven economic formula from his first term”.
“To anyone on Wall Street this morning, I would say trust in President Trump,” she told the broadcaster, adding: “This is indeed a national emergency… and it’s about time we have a president who actually does something about it.”
Later, the US president told reporters as he left the White House that “I think it’s going very well,” adding: “The markets are going to boom, the stock is going to boom, the country is going to boom.”
He later said on Air Force One that the UK is “happy” with its tariff – the lowest possible levy of 10% – and added he would be open to negotiations if other countries “offer something phenomenal”.
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Economist warns of ‘spiral of doom’
The turbulence in the markets from Mr Trump’s tariffs “just left everybody in shock”, Garrett Melson, portfolio strategist at Natixis Investment Managers Solutions in Boston, told Reuters.
He added that the economy could go into recession as a result, saying that “a lot of the pain, will probably most acutely be felt in the US and that certainly would weigh on broader global growth as well”.
Meanwhile, chief investment officer at St James’s Place Justin Onuekwusi said that international retaliation is likely, even as “it’s clear countries will think about how to retaliate in a politically astute way”.
He warned: “Significant retaliation could lead to a tariff ‘spiral of doom’ that could be the growth shock that drags us into recession.”
It comes as the UK government published a long list of US products that could be subject to reciprocal tariffs – including golf clubs and golf balls.
Running to more than 400 pages, the list is part of a four-week-long consultation with British businesses and suggests whiskey, jeans, livestock, and chemical components.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said on Thursday that the US president had launched a “new era” for global trade and that the UK will respond with “cool and calm heads”.
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He added: “The 80-year period when the United States embraced the mantle of global economic leadership, when it forged alliances rooted in trust and mutual respect and championed the free and open exchange of goods and services, is over. This is a tragedy.”