Suspect in attack on French teacher shot by police

Police officers spent Friday evening carrying out an investigation after a history teacher was decapitated in a Paris suburb.

The French anti-terrorism prosecutor opened the investigation concerning murder with a suspected terrorist motive, the prosecutor’s office said.

The gruesome killing of the teacher occurred in the town of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine while the suspect was killed by police in adjoining Eragny.

A police official said the suspect, armed with a knife and an airsoft gun - which fires plastic pellets - was shot dead about 600 metres (yards) from where the male teacher was killed after he failed to respond to orders to put down his arms, and acted in a threatening manner.

The teacher had received threats after opening a discussion “for a debate” about the caricatures about 10 days ago, the police official told The Associated Press.

The parent of a student had filed a complaint against the teacher, another police official said, adding that the suspected killer did not have a child at the school.

The suspect's identity was not made public.