President Nicolas Sarkozy called the shooting an “abominable drama and a frightening tragedy.” He cancelled his appointments and left for Toulouse on Monday morning, accompanied by Education Minister Luc Chatel and the president of the CRIF French Jewish
association, Richard Prasquier.
Sarkozy and Socialist presidential nominee François Hollande announced the suspension of the election campaign. French police heighten security around Jewish schools across France closing streets.
The president met with local police officers. Speaking in Toulouse he said that “the investigation will be completed in its entirety. Whoever did it was crazy to murder Jewish children.”
The commander of the local police said they didn’t yet have a lead, but that a suspicious white car was seen at the scene of the crime.
Sarkozy said that on Tuesday, every school in France will stand for a moment of silence for the victims of the Toulouse shooting.
Hollande, the socialist presidential candidate for the French presidency announced that he will also travel to Toulouse to “express solidarity with the victims’ families and the French Jewish community.”
French authorities were stepping up security at all Jewish schools in France, Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said, adding the suspect made his getaway on a dark-colored scooter.The school behind a high white wall with few external markings was cordoned off Monday by police, who then escorted other children out. One officer held a distraught girl, her face in her hands. A mother and son wearing a yarmulke walked away from the site, their faces visibly pained. A video camera was visible at the school’s entrance.
“The drama occurred a bit before 8 a.m. A man arrived in front of the school on a motorcycle or scooter,” Valet said, adding that the man got off his scooter outside the school and opened fire.
“He shot at everything he had in front of him, children and adults,” he said. “The children were chased inside the school”
The prosecutor said the suspect probably used two weapons, including one of a large caliber.
It was the latest in a week of motorcycle shooting attacks in France. A gunman on a motorbike opened fire on three uniformed paratroopers at a bank machine Thursday in Montauban in southern France, killing two and critically wounding the other. Four days earlier, a gunman on a motorbike shot and killed another paratrooper in Toulouse, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) away.
The Paris prosecutor’s office said Monday it will investigate eventual terrorist links to Monday’s killing and the two killings of paratroopers last week. The prosecutor’s office, in a statement, did not indicate any evidence so far of any form of terrorism.
Both the prosecutor and Brandet said there were similarities with the attack four days ago in Montauban. Brandet noted that in both cases scooters were used and both suspects were apparently very determined.
