Terrorist attacks in France

Three people were killed in Nice, France, on Oct. 29 when a man armed with a knife attacked people in a church. The attacker was shot by police and detained. Authorities described the attack as an act of Islamist terrorism.

In a second incident on the same day, in the town of Montfavet, a man threatening police with a handgun was shot and killed. The man’s motive was not known at press time.

The French government moved its terrorism-alert level to the highest position after the attack in Nice, as it was the second fatal terrorist attack in two weeks. On Oct. 16, a teacher was attacked and killed outside of his school in the Paris suburb of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine. The attacker fled and was later killed by police.

The teacher had been threatened for showing his class a comic depicting the Prophet Muhammad, and his killer was connected to a fundamentalist Islamic cleric who had called for violence against the victim. The attacker, an 18-year-old, was not related to any student in the teacher’s classes, nor was he from the Paris area.

After the teacher was killed, police raided more than 40 homes looking for accomplices who may have assisted the attacker, arresting 15 people, including four students at the school.