UPDATE: A prosecutor says the French teacher who claimed to be attacked by a masked assailant made up the story, according to the Associated Press.
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A masked man wielding a box-cutter and scissors stabbed a pre-school teacher in the throat and side in a Paris suburb Monday while shouting about the Islamic State group, French prosecutors said.
The assailant screamed, “This is Daesh. This is a warning,” an eyewitness told French police, Agence France-Presse reported.
Daesh is the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group.
A police officer walks in front of the building of Jean-Perrin nursery school in Aubervilliers, a suburb northeast of Paris, where a teacher was attacked in the morning by a man wielding a box cutter and scissors who cited the Islamic State jihadist group, sources in the police and prosecutor's office said. The 45-year-old teacher was stabbed in the side and throat while preparing for his class at the school, but his life was not in danger, a police source said. The assault comes after the Islamic State in November urged its followers to kill teachers in the French education system for teaching secularism and being 'in open war against the Muslim family.' (Jacques Demarthon/AFP/Getty Images)
According to the reports citing French officials, the attacker wearing a ski mask over his head was not armed when he arrived at the school but then grabbed a box-cutter and scissors in a classroom.
A police source told AFP that the 45-year-old victim’s life was not in danger after he was stabbed at the Jean Perrin pre-school school in Aubervilliers, northeast of Paris.
After he stabbed the teacher, the attacker fled the scene.
Despite the words the attacker screamed, unnamed officials told the Associated Press that the motive for the attack was unclear.
Reuters also quoted a French official who told reporters it was too early to make conclusions about the nature of the attack.
Philippe Galli, the top government official for the Seine-Saint-Denis region, told reporters that no children were present during the attack as it occurred before classes began, the AP reported.
AFP pointed out that the Islamic State group’s French-language magazine last month encouraged its followers to kill French educators for teaching secular studies, accusing them of engaging "in open war against the Muslim family" and being "enemies of Allah."
The jihadist group claimed responsibility for the terrorist attacks in Paris last month in which 130 were killed by men armed with guns and suicide vests.
