French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin has thanked police for quickly arresting a man armed with a box cutter who was making threats outside an elementary school in the Seine-Saint-Denis area of Paris.
“I salute the composure and dynamism of the police, who intervened very quickly to arrest a dangerous individual, armed with a cutter, in front of an elementary school in Seine-Saint-Denis,” Darmanin said, adding that, the “individual was making threats.”
The man was reportedly threatening parents as they dropped their children off at the school in Rosny-sous-Bois.
The man was spotted on CCTV and quickly arrested by police. An investigation into the circumstances of the alleged incident has been launched though no motive has yet been announced.
The man was described by French media as “very incoherent” and has been taken in for questioning though there has been no comment from French anti-terrorism prosecutors thus far.
Friday’s incident comes amid a slew of attacks across France as well as several arrests of armed individuals suspected of planning to carry out copycat attacks of the Nice attack in which three people were killed.
The country is on high alert in recent weeks amid escalating tensions between the secular government and more radical Islamist elements within the French population.
Tensions have increased across Europe since French school teacher Samuel Paty was decapitated on October 16 for showing cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed to his students.
French politicians and citizens have expressed solidarity with Paty’s family, and protested in favour of free speech, displaying the offending cartoons, among others satirizing other Abrahamic religions such as Christianity and Judaism.
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