A gunman has killed one person and injured five others, including a critically injured 12-year-old girl, in northern France, in what authorities are calling a racially motivated “terrorist” attack.
Friday’s shootings come as protests for livelihoods intensify and often become violent across the country, with further demonstrations expected on Saturday.
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President Emmanuel Macron called the shooting a “terrorist and racist attack.”
So what was behind this attack? And is Islamophobia on the rise in Europe?
Here’s what we know:
What happened in France?
At around 10:30 a.m. Friday morning (8:30 a.m. Japan time), a gunman drove through the towns of Trappe and La Verrière, a working-class area on the outskirts of Paris with a large immigrant and Muslim population, and fired indiscriminately with an automatic weapon at a gas station, a medical center and a children’s playground.
The assault lasted approximately 15 minutes and the suspect, 39-year-old Kevin T., was arrested. Local lawmaker Laurent Mazoly said the suspect told police he wanted to “kill foreigners.” He added: “I think we’re facing a racist.”
French media reported that a young black man was killed and a woman wearing a headscarf and a 12-year-old girl were shot and wounded.
The slain man was identified as Pengo Basio Wangi.
The girl, who is of North African descent, was shot eight times and taken to a children’s hospital for surgery, her mother said.
Prosecutors said in a statement that three of the five injured were in critical condition.
How did the French authorities respond?
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez told reporters Friday that the investigation is “ongoing, but it is clearly a terrorist crime.”
Prosecutors said they were investigating whether the suspect colluded with a “terrorist group,” adding that members of the gunman’s immediate “family circle” were also detained.
The local police chief told French media that authorities found an “old-style semi-automatic rifle” used in World War II and a tear gas grenade in the suspect’s car.
Trapps Mayor Ali Rabe said the suspect had “fired randomly” and was trying to cause “bloodshed” in the community, calling it “objectively a racist attack, possibly Islamophobic.”
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecorne, writing in X, said the incident was “very serious” and that “all the resources of the security forces and judicial authorities are being mobilized.”
The shooting comes at a time of great tension in France, as violent cost of living and student protests grip the country.
French authorities plan to deploy 70,000 police officers on Saturday as protests, which some far-right groups blame on Muslim youth, are expected to continue.
What was your reaction to the shooting?
President Macron issued a statement Friday calling the “racist terrorist attack” “a turning point in the life of our republic and nation.”
“Tonight, I reiterated the nation’s support for all victims and their families. I also reaffirmed my absolute determination to continue the fight against racism in all its forms,” he said on X.
Mayor Rabe, who has Moroccan roots, said the people targeted “could very well be my mother, my brother or my sister-in-law.”
“A 12-year-old girl is in the crosshairs of life and death after being targeted by a volley of automatic gunfire in our country,” he said. “Her crime was likely committed by a person of color.”
“How could someone do this to a child?” the girl’s mother told French broadcaster RTL.
She questioned whether her daughter had been targeted because she was wearing a headscarf.
“She is a child born in Trappes, France,” she said. “She has the right to live in France and live her life in France.”
Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right anti-immigration National Rally, condemned the attack as “barbaric”.
But Muslim groups accused the populist right of creating a climate of hatred in the country with Islamophobic rhetoric. Most recently, while campaigning for France’s presidential election, Le Pen suggested that women who wear headscarves in public should be fined.
Farid Hafez, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s The Bridge Initiative, which monitors incidents of Islamophobia in Europe, wrote in an article for Al Jazeera that some members of the far right are blaming Muslim youth for violence occurring during the ongoing protests.
Last week, the European Parliament passed a resolution on “the need for an EU strategy to counter Islamist entryism and the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood network”. The bill was introduced by the center-right European People’s Party and passed by a vote of 381 to 167, with 15 abstentions.
“Symbolically, this resolution is a major victory for Europe’s right-wing anti-Islam forces,” Hafez wrote. “This shows that the European Parliament is starting to abandon any firewall against the far right, as the centre-right moves closer and closer to the far right.”
Rabe said Friday’s shootings were a result of people “blaming Arab Muslims for all the evils in this society. All these comments cause death,” an apparent reference to the rhetoric of far-right political groups such as the National Rally. He accused MPs who have made negative comments about Muslims as “criminals” who “ideologically weaponize people who could commit crimes.”
The Islamic Council of France condemned the “promoters of anti-Muslim hate speech with blood on their hands”.
Are Islamophobic attacks on the rise in Europe and the US?
That’s what advocacy groups and observers say.
In June, Amnesty International reported that Islamophobic violence in the UK had reached “emergency levels”, with an escalating wave of hate crimes and targeted attacks, including rape and the incendiary bombing of mosques.
The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights said that racial discrimination against Muslims has increased in recent years, with one in two European Muslims reporting that they have experienced racial discrimination, particularly when it comes to applying for jobs and housing.
In the UK, watchdog group Tel MAMA reported 1,909 anti-Muslim incidents last year, a 5% increase from the previous year, but said the actual number was likely to be higher because many people did not come forward.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations released a report Friday condemning the attacks in France. Reports of anti-Muslim bias are at an all-time high in the United States, with California’s attorney general reporting a 54% increase in anti-Muslim hate crimes by 2025, from 24 to 38.
