A gunman opened fire from a car in Trappes and the neighbouring town of La Verrière, west of Paris, on Friday morning, killing one person and wounding at least four others in a drive-by rampage that lasted about fifteen minutes. The anti-terrorism prosecutor said the suspect, a 39-year-old man, fired an automatic weapon from about 10:30 a.m., first at a petrol station, then at a medical centre and a children’s playground. A 12-year-old girl was shot eight times. The mayor of La Verrière said she was stable; the mayor of Trappes, Ali Rabeh, said she was between life and death, and the prosecutor said the condition of the wounded was not stable.
The suspect was arrested in nearby Coignières. The National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office has opened an investigation into murder in connection with a terrorist enterprise, with an aggravating circumstance tied to the victims’ real or supposed race, ethnicity, nationality or religion. Rabeh described the man who was killed as of African origin and one critically wounded victim as of North African origin, and called the attack objectively racist and probably Islamophobic. A constituency MP said the suspect told officers he wanted to kill foreigners. The suspect has a criminal record and was known to police, but not to the intelligence services.
President Emmanuel Macron travelled to Trappes on Friday evening and called the shooting a racist terrorist attack. He said the gunman had targeted people because of the colour of their skin, described the attack as premeditated, and said what happened was a turning point in the life of the Republic. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez called the shooting clearly a terrorist crime and a racist, probably Islamophobic attack.
The attack comes after weeks of unrest over the cost of living and school funding, and on the eve of another round of protests and rallies planned for Saturday in Paris and other cities. The government has mobilised 70,000 police against further rioting, and authorities in Lyon and Marseille have banned the marches planned there. Officials drew no direct link between the unrest and the shooting. France’s largest football club was ordered by police to move a match scheduled for Sunday, a sign of how stretched the security deployment already was before the attack.