‘Several people held’ after teacher fatally stabbed in French school

Police forces cordon off the area near the Gambetta high school, seen in background, after a man armed with a knife killed a teacher and wounded three others in Arras, northern France (Michel Euler/AP/PA)

France’s national counterterrorism prosecutor has said that several people have been detained in an investigation into a school stabbing that left one teacher dead and three people wounded.

The attack happened at a school in Arras in northern France.

Prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard said the wounded include a teacher, a security agent and a cleaning worker.

He said ″several people are in custody″ along with the main suspect but did not give details.

He identified the attacker as Mohammed M, who was born in Russia in 2003. Mr Ricard said the suspected attacker had been under surveillance for radicalism.

French police officers from the forensic service stand in front of the Gambetta high school in Arras, northeastern France (Ludovic Marin, Pool via AP/PA)

A colleague and a fellow teacher identified the dead teacher as Dominique Bernard, a French language teacher at the Gambetta-Carnot high school.

The attack happened almost three years after another teacher, Samuel Paty, was beheaded by a radicalised Chechen near a Paris area school.