A teenager who attacked a Jewish teacher in Marseille on Monday is a Turkish citizen of Kurdish origin who said he acted in the name of the militant Islamist group Islamic State, the prosecutor in the southern French city of Marseille said.
“He claimed to have acted in the name of Allah and the Islamic State, repeating several times to have done on behalf of Daech (Islamic State),” the prosecutor, Brice Robin, told a news conference.
The 15 year-old, who was armed with a machete and a knife, wounded the teacher slightly before being stopped and arrested.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve earlier called the attack a “brutal anti-semitic aggression.”
France has the highest Jewish and the Muslim populations in Europe. Violent racial incidents have been in the spotlight since Islamic State claimed a co-ordinated series of attacks in Paris on Nov. 13 in which 130 people were killed.
