- Buried Nazi past haunts Athens on liberation anniversary
- Harris to release medical report confirming fitness for presidency: campaign
- Nobel prize a timely reminder, Hiroshima locals say
- Hezbollah fires at Israel as wars rage on Yom Kippur
- Analysts warn more detail needed on new China economic measures
- China tees up fresh spending to boost ailing economy
- China says will issue special bonds to boost ailing economy
- China offers $325 bn in fiscal stimulus for ailing economy
- Dodgers drop Padres 2-0 to advance in MLB playoffs
- Alexei Navalny wrote he knew he would die in prison in new memoir
- Last-minute legal ruling allows betting on US election
- Despite hurricanes, Floridians refuse to leave 'paradise'
- Israel observes Yom Kippur amid firestorm over Lebanon strikes
- Trump demonizes migrants in dark, misleading speech
- X says 'alert' to manipulation efforts after pro-Russia bots report
- US, European markets rise before Boeing unveils sweeping job cuts
- Small Quebec company dominates one part of NHL hockey: jerseys
- Comoros shock Tunisia, Salah, Mbeumo strike in AFCON qualifiers
- Boeing to cut 10% of workforce as it sees big Q3 loss
- Germany win in Nations League as 10-man Dutch rescue point
- Undav brace sends Germany to victory against Bosnia
- Israel says fired at 'threat' near UN position in Lebanon
- Want to film in Paris? No sexism allowed
- Ecuador's last mountain iceman dies at 80
- Milton leaves at least 16 dead, millions without power in Florida
- Senegal set to announce breakaway development agenda: PM
- UN says 2 peacekeepers wounded in south Lebanon explosions
- Injury-hit Australia thrash 'embarrassing' Pakistan at Women's T20 World Cup
- Internal TikTok documents show prioritization of traffic over well-being
- Israel says fired at 'immediate threat' near UN position in Lebanon
- New US coach Pochettino hails Pulisic but worries over workload
- Brazil orders closure of 2,000 betting sites
- UK govt urged to raise pro-democracy tycoon's case with China
- Sculptor Lalanne's animal creations sell for $59 mn
- From Tesla to Trump: Behind Musk's giant leap into politics
- US, European markets rise as investors weigh rates, earnings
- In Colombia, children trade plastic waste for school supplies
- Supercharged hurricanes trigger 'perfect storm' for disinformation
- JPMorgan Chase profits top estimates, bank sees 'resilient' US economy
- Djokovic proves staying power as he progresses to Shanghai semi-finals
- Sheffield Utd boss Wilder 'numb' after Baldock death
- Little progress at key meet ahead of COP29 climate summit
- Fans immerse themselves in Marina Abramovic's first China exhibition
- Israel says conducting review after UN peacekeepers wounded in Lebanon
- 'Party atmosphere': Skygazers treated to another aurora show
- Djokovic 'overwhelmed' after 'greatest rival' Nadal's retirement
- Zelensky in Berlin says hopes war with Russia will end next year
- Kyrgyzstan opens rare probe into glacier destruction
- European Mediterranean states discuss Middle East, migration
- Djokovic proves staying power as progresses to Shanghai semi-finals
France remembers murdered teacher as Macron urges 'ruthless' response
France was on Monday set to hold a minute of silence for a teacher killed in what the government has described as an Islamist terror attack, with President Emmanuel Macron calling for a "ruthless" approach towards extremists.
The knife attack on Friday in the northern city of Arras, almost three years to the day after a similar killing outside Paris, has shocked teachers and members of the wider public, triggered a massive security response and prompted France to increase its attack alert level.
Tensions were stoked on Monday morning when the same Arras school was evacuated, with a source familiar with the case telling AFP a bomb threat had been made by phone.
Macron has told ministers to "embody a state that is ruthless towards all those who harbour hate and terrorist ideologies", a senior aide told reporters, ahead of a new national security meeting later Monday.
He later wrote that schools would remain a "bulwark" against extremism and "a sanctuary for our pupils and everyone who works there" in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
- 'Very alone' -
The killing of the teacher by a former pupil has sharpened nervousness in France, which has large Muslim and Jewish populations and has been on the alert for violence since Hamas's attack on Israel.
Classes will pause for a minute of silence at 2:00 pm (1200 GMT) to remember French teacher Dominique Bernard, 57. He was stabbed to death at the school in Arras in an attack that also wounded three others.
Early lessons were cancelled in middle and high schools on Monday to allow teachers to discuss the attack and how to deal with it in front of pupils.
"It was very important for us to meet, it lowers tensions because as teachers, we're very alone," said Benjamin Marol, a history teacher at a school in Montreuil just outside Paris.
Bernard was killed almost three years to the day after teacher Samuel Paty was beheaded outside his school in a Paris suburb, on October 16, 2020.
The families of Paty's killer and the suspected Arras assailant share a background in Russia's North Caucasus region.
- 'Special approach' -
Police have named Friday's suspected perpetrator as Mohammed Moguchkov, 20. He was born in Russia's predominantly Muslim North Caucasus republic of Ingushetia and reportedly arrived in France at the age of five.
He reportedly cried "Allahu akbar!" (God is greatest) during the attack. He has been detained but has not yet spoken, according to a police source.
He was already on a French national register as a potential security threat and under electronic and physical surveillance by France's domestic intelligence agency, the DGSI. His father, who was also on the list, was deported in 2018.
Three years ago, Paty was beheaded by 18-year-old Abdullah Anzorov, a radicalised refugee born in Moscow to ethnic Chechen parents. Like Ingushetia, Chechnya is a predominantly Muslim republic in Russia's Caucasus region.
Anzorov, who had come to France as a six-year-old, was shot dead by police at the scene.
Macron has called on police to comb through their files of radicalised people who could be deported from France to make sure no-one has been overlooked.
He has told the interior minister to take a "special approach to young men between the ages of 16 and 25 from the Caucasus", the aide said.
Friday's killing has led to calls for tighter security at schools. The government has already put the country on high alert and deployed 7,000 troops.
- Political fight -
More than 260 people have been killed in France since 2012 in assaults blamed on, or claimed by, Islamist radicals -- from mass killings in Paris and Nice in 2015 and 2016, to individual murders of teachers, police officers or a priest.
The string of violent incidents has kept security and immigration issues at the forefront of political debate.
On Monday, National Assembly (lower house) speaker Yael Braun-Pivet, who belongs to Macron's Renaissance party, said that a draft immigration law should be voted through "by the end of the year".
The bill provides that "people who are not integrated, who are radicalised, who swear ferocious hatred against the (French) republic... must indeed be able to be removed", she told broadcaster France 2.
Resistance to the draft law has come from the conservative Republicans, who reject other provisions allowing for the regularisation of some migrants without residence permits.
P.Costa--AMWN