Shooting near Paris leaves one dead and four hurt; officials call it a terrorist attack, suspect in custody

On Friday, a man fired from a moving vehicle at people along a route through two towns west of Paris. Trappes and La Verriere sit about 20 kilometers (13 miles) from the capital, close to Versailles. When it was over, one person was dead and four were wounded, three of them in critical condition.

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said the shots were fired at three locations over roughly 15 minutes, a span he called a rampage. He said the weapon appeared to be military-grade, or at least automatic, and he described the shooting as clearly a terrorist crime.

The mayor of Trappes, Ali Rabeh, wrote on social media that an individual had fired from his vehicle at multiple people along his route. He later told the broadcaster BFM TV that one of the sites was a playground. "It is a miracle that there were not more victims," he said. Among the injured is a 12-year-old girl, who Aurore Berge, the minister for gender equality and antidiscrimination, said was very seriously hurt.

Rabeh said the person killed was of African origin and that one of the critically wounded was of North African origin. He described the attack as having racist, probably Islamophobic, overtones, and called it likely one of the first attempted mass killings in France motivated by Islamophobia and racism.

President Emmanuel Macron went further in his characterization. "What happened today was a terrorist and racist attack," he told reporters, saying the victims were targeted because of their religion and the color of their skin. He said the attack marks a turning point for France. Berge struck a conditional note: if a racist motive is established, she hoped the whole nation would stand with the residents of Trappes and La Verriere and with the victims. Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu called the incident very serious and said all available resources of the security forces and judicial authorities had been mobilized.

Police detained a man shortly afterward in the neighboring town of Coignieres. Authorities identified him as Kevin T., born in 1987, and said he already had a criminal record. France's anti-terrorism prosecutor said investigators found a Sten Gun, a British-made submachine gun from the Second World War, and a tear gas grenade in his car. Authorities also said he had booby-trapped his apartment.

The national anti-terrorism prosecutor's office, known as Pnat, has opened an investigation into murder in connection with a terrorist enterprise. The charge carries the aggravating circumstance that the acts were committed because of the victim's actual or perceived membership of a particular race, ethnicity, nation or religion.

The shooting came on the eve of another day of protests across France over the high cost of living. Major museums in Paris and other big cities planned to close on Saturday, and Nunez announced 70,000 security personnel would be deployed. "We are not talking about a nice protest," he said, adding that the government was ready to be extremely firm. There was no immediate suggestion that the shooting was connected to the protests or to Islamist terrorism.

Trappes has known tension before. A local teacher reported receiving threats after saying the state had not done enough to protect Samuel Paty, the teacher beheaded in 2020 by a radical Islamist in another Paris suburb after showing his class caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed. France has seen a spate of Islamist attacks in recent years, and although the number of incidents has fallen, authorities warn the risk remains. What to watch now is what the investigation establishes about the suspect's motive, and the condition of the three people still in critical care.