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"Soutien total aux professeurs" (full support for our teachers) is written on this solidarity note at the crime scene
Photo: Federico Pestellini / imago images / PanoramiC
The number of those arrested in connection with the murder of a teacher near Paris rises to eleven.
According to information from the French anti-terrorist public prosecutor's office, a friend of the attacker has been taken into custody.
The investigative authorities rate the knife attack on Friday as Islamist terrorism.
The perpetrator was shot dead by the police shortly after the crime.
Those arrested include on the one hand people from the perpetrator's environment.
The investigators also have people in their sights who have raised the mood against the teacher.
Some of them are also in police custody.
The victim of the attack is a 47-year-old teacher at a collège, a type of school between a German elementary school and a grammar school.
The educator had shown caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed in class to discuss freedom of expression.
Then there were complaints with the school management.
The father of a student had also mobilized against the teacher online.
The public prosecutor's office has not yet established a direct connection between the father and the attacker.
He lived in the city of Évreux, around 90 kilometers from the crime scene in Éragny.
Otherwise, little has become public about the background of the attacker.
The TV broadcaster BFM reported on Friday evening that it was an 18-year-old who was born in Moscow.
After the crime in a Paris suburb, he posted a photo of the dead man on social networks and wrote that he had belittled the Prophet Mohammed.
French President Emmanuel Macron spoke on Friday of an Islamist terrorist attack and said the teacher was killed for advocating freedom of expression.
The attack was aimed at the entire republic.
Second attack within a few weeks
On Sunday there will be expressions of solidarity across France.
Among other things, the satirical magazine "Charlie Hebdo" is organizing a demonstration.
It is to take place in the afternoon on the Place de la République in Paris.
It is a symbolic place - after the terror series in January 2015, which also included the attack on "Charlie Hebdo", thousands of victims were commemorated there.
Since then, the square has become a central place for sympathy.
Only a few weeks ago there was a knife attack in front of the former editorial building of the satirical magazine "Charlie Hebdo" in Paris.
Two people were injured - here too, the investigators assume a terrorist background.
At the same time, the trial of alleged helpers of the terror series in January 2015 has been going on in Paris since the beginning of September. 14 people are accused.
A total of 17 people were killed in several attacks in January 2015.
The attacks not only hit the editorial staff of "Charlie Hebdo", but also a kosher supermarket in Paris.
The three perpetrators were shot dead by security forces.
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Löw / dpa