Macron Calls Trappes Shooting a Racist Terrorist Attack

French President Emmanuel Macron visited Trappes on Friday evening and described the Trappes shooting as a racist terrorist attack, hours after a gunman opened fire from a car in the Paris suburb and killed a 26-year-old man. Five other people were wounded in the attack, which unfolded across Trappes and the nearby town of La Verrière on Friday morning, according to French officials and reporting by Le Monde and CNN. Macron told reporters at the scene that the victims had been targeted because of the colour of their skin or their religion, and he called the killings a turning point for France.

A morning of gunfire across two suburbs

According to Le Monde, the gunman began firing at around 10 in the morning from a grey Renault Clio, using a Sten-type submachine gun. His first target was a car carrying a mother and her daughter at 34 Avenue Hector-Berlioz in Trappes. He then drove toward a health centre and fired in bursts at the building, causing no injuries there, before reversing direction and heading to Square Louis-Pergaud, where he shot and killed Pengo B.-W., a young man from Poissy who practised amateur mixed martial arts. A martial arts club in Seine-Saint-Denis later paid tribute to him on social media, describing him as a generous presence on and off the mat. Residents described hearing bursts of gunfire on a normally quiet Friday morning, and police cordoned off streets around the two locations as the Trappes shooting investigation began.

The Trappes shooting continued into La Verrière, and CNN reported that the gunman also fired at a petrol station, a medical centre and a children’s playground during a rampage lasting roughly a quarter of an hour. Among the wounded was a girl aged twelve, who was reported by broadcaster BFM to have been hit eight times and to be in serious condition. Three of the wounded were reported to be in serious condition. Police arrested the suspect, a man aged thirty-nine whom officials named only as Kevin T., in keeping with French practice in criminal inquiries. He was known to police over previous convictions that had been expunged, but he was not known to France’s intelligence services, according to local reporting cited by CNN.

A terrorism investigation and a tense national mood

France’s National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office, known as PNAT, formally opened an investigation into murder and attempted murder in connection with a terrorist enterprise, CNN reported. In a statement carried by French media, prosecutors said the facts as established so far appeared to constitute such an offence. Macron said the gunman had deliberately chosen not to fire on some people because of their appearance, and he argued that the country had not previously faced a planned terrorist act aimed at killing residents because of skin colour or religion. Trappes Mayor Ali Rabeh, whose parents came from Morocco, called the attack racist and Islamophobic and said the people targeted could just as easily have been members of his own family. Macron urged the public to stand firm against what he described as ideologies taking root, and the Trappes shooting drew condemnation from politicians across the spectrum.

The Trappes shooting landed in a tense week for France. CNN noted that the attack came after nationwide protests turned violent the previous Saturday and before further demonstrations expected over the weekend, with some far-right politicians blaming immigration for looting and vandalism in several cities on October 17. Le Monde reported that, while political leaders across the spectrum condemned the attack in similar terms, the suspected gunman’s motives remained unclear. A member of the suspect’s immediate family was also taken into custody on Friday, according to the prosecutor’s office, and investigators were examining the scene and the suspect’s background.

For residents of Trappes, a town west of Paris, the investigation now moves to establishing exactly how the attack was planned and whether the suspect acted with the racist motive Macron described. The prosecutor’s terrorism investigation gives counter-terrorism officers wider powers than an ordinary criminal inquiry, including longer custody and tougher sentences on conviction. Police have appealed for witnesses from the two towns to come forward, and the wounded remain under treatment in hospital as the inquiry continues. The Trappes shooting has left investigators with a central question: how a man known to police but not to intelligence services came to carry out an attack of this scale.

Sources: Le Monde and CNN reported on the attack, the investigation and Macron’s remarks.