Attack in France Labelled Islamic Terror

After a teacher in Paris was beheaded, President Macron called the attack an act of Islamic Terror. What happened?

Several arrests have been made and one man shot after an assailant beheaded a history teacher in a Paris suburb yesterday.

The teacher was gruesomely beheaded by an attacker wielding a knife and an airsoft gun.
He had been the object of death threats for several weeks after he conducted a lesson which included caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad at school.
When police arrived at the scene, the assailant was shot and killed after failing to comply with police orders.
The French anti-terrorism prosecutor opened an investigation into the murder, suspecting a terrorist motive after several witnesses claimed that the assailant yelled “Allahu Akbar” during the attack.
President Emanuel Macron decried the attack as an act of Islamic terror, and said that the country must “all stand together as citizens” in the fight to combat extremism.
Nine arrests have been made in connection to the incident, although no details have been released as to how the suspects are connected to the crime.
France has suffered from multiple Islamic terrorist attacks in the past five years, including one attack which was specifically related to caricatures of the Prophet.
For decades, France has received backlash from its Muslim citizens who feel disenfranchised by the culture and policies in the country. In 2010, the government was met with accusations of Islamophobia after it passed a controversial law which prohibited face coverings (like Burqas) in public.

Frames the incident as a tragedy, highlighting statements from union officials that “a teacher was killed just for doing his job.”
Points out that the nation’s issues with Islamophobia and xenophobia are a historic, longstanding concern which are not isolated to France.
Likens the attack to the Charlie Hebdo massacre in 2015.

Frames the incident as a tragedy, and an assault on freedom of expression.
Points out that the perpetrator (who was shot dead) was a Chechen teenager and that an attacker in a separate incident was a Pakistani Also reports heavily on the fact that the attacker shouted “Allahu Akbar.”
Is historically sympathetic to France for its policies which some have considered racist or xenophobic.

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