French Teacher Decapitated For Showing Prophet Mohammed Cartoon In Class

Paris: A history teacher who opened a discussion with students on caricatures of Islam's Prophet Muhammad was decapitated in a French street on Friday and police have shot the suspected killer dead, a police official said.

The attacker shouted "Allahu Akbar" ("God is greatest") as police confronted him, a cry often heard in jihadist attacks, a police source said.

The French anti-terrorism prosecutor has opened an investigation into the slaying for murder with a suspected terrorist motive, the prosecutor's office said. The gruesome incident occurred in the town of Eragny, in the Val d'Oise region northwest of Paris.

A police official said the suspect, armed with a knife and an airsoft gun was shot to death by police about 600 meters (yards) from where the male teacher was killed.

The teacher had been threatened after opening a discussion the debate, the police official told The Associated Press.

The official could not be named, not being authorised to discuss ongoing investigations.

It was the second terrorism-related incident since the opening of an ongoing trial on the newsroom massacre in Jan 2015 at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.

French President Emmanuel Macron called the beheading of the teacher an "Islamist terrorist attack", and pledged quick and firm action by his government to combat extremism.

"One of our fellow citizens was murdered today because he was teaching students freedom of expression," Macron told the media on Friday evening after visiting the middle school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine hours after the attack.

"It is a teacher that this terrorist killed because he wanted to destroy the Republic...destroy the possibility of making our children free citizens," he added.

Macron stressed that terrorists will not divide France and obscurantism will not win.

(AP)