Macron Confirms Street Beheading an ‘Islamist Terrorist Attack’

French president Emmanuel Macron has confirmed that a street beheading near Paris was “an Islamist terrorist attack” perpetrated against an educator “teaching his students about the freedom of expression”.

The unnamed victim, reported to be a teacher of history and geography, is said to have been targeted because he showed images of the Islamic prophet — Muslims were said to have been asked in advance to leave if they might be offended — during a “moral and civil education” class centred on freedom of speech and expression.

“One of our countrymen was assassinated because he was teaching, because he was teaching his students about the freedom of expression, the freedom to believe or not believe,” Macron said at a press conference near the scene of the attack in Conflans-Saint-Honorine (Yvelines).

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Unconfirmed reports suggest that the terrorist was an 18-year-old Chechen migrant, and that a Twitter user posting under the username @Tchetchene_270 had shared an image of the teacher’s severed head shortly after the attack, with the message: “In the name of Allah, the most merciful… to Macron, the leader of the infidels, I executed one of your hellhounds who dared to belittle Muhammad, calm his fellow human beings before a harsh punishment is inflicted on you.”

The perpetrator, armed with an airsoft gun and a bladed weapon, was fatally shot by police officers a short distance from the scene of the killing not long afterwards, after acting in a threatening manner.

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