Suspect Arrested After 15-Minute Shooting Spree in Trappes

A gunman killed one person and injured five others in the Paris suburb of Trappes on Friday morning, in an attack that French authorities have officially designated as a terrorist crime. The incident occurred in two working-class communities on the northern outskirts of the capital, where immigrant and Muslim populations are well represented.

The shooting began at approximately 10:30 a.m. local time. The attacker drove through Trappes and La Verriere, firing an automatic weapon at a petrol station, a medical center, and a children's playground. Police arrested the suspect, identified as Kevin T., a 39-year-old man, after the rampage lasted about 15 minutes.

Local MP Laurent Mazaury stated that the suspect told officers upon arrest that he wanted to "kill foreigners." Mazaury described the suspect as a racist individual. French media reports indicate that the deceased man, Pengo Bassio Wangi, was young and Black. Among the five wounded was a 12-year-old girl of North African descent who was shot eight times and transported to a children's hospital for surgery. Other victims included a woman wearing a headscarf. Prosecutors confirmed that three of the injured are in critical condition.

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez declared the incident "clearly a terrorist crime." Prosecutors are currently investigating whether the suspect conspired with a terrorist group. A member of his immediate family has also been taken into custody. Investigators found a World War II-era semiautomatic weapon and tear gas grenades inside the suspect's vehicle.

Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu characterized the case as "very serious" and stated that all security and judicial resources were fully mobilized. President Emmanuel Macron labeled the event a "racist terrorist attack" and a "turning point in the life of our Republic." He emphasized that France remains determined to combat racism in all its forms.

Ali Rabeh, the mayor of Trappes who has Moroccan roots, said the gunman fired at random with the intent to cause a "bloodbath." Rabeh described the attack as "objectively a racist attack, probably Islamophobic." He noted that the victims could easily have been his own relatives and stated, "Her crime was probably being of colour," referring to the wounded girl.

The girl's mother told broadcaster RTL, "How could anyone do this to a child?" She questioned whether her daughter was targeted because of her headscarf and stressed that the girl was born in Trappes and has the right to build her life in France.

The attack occurred while cost-of-living and student protests, often violent, gripped the country. Authorities plan to deploy 70,000 police officers on Saturday when more demonstrations are expected. Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Rally, condemned the shooting as "barbaric." Muslim groups accused the populist right of fostering hatred through Islamophobic rhetoric, citing Le Pen's campaign proposal to fine women who wear the headscarf in public. Rabeh called politicians who make negative comments about Muslims "criminals," while the French Muslim Council blamed promoters of anti-Muslim hate speech for having "blood on their hands."

Monitors report that anti-Muslim hostility is growing. Last week, the European Parliament passed a resolution by 381 votes to 167 with 15 abstentions, calling for an EU strategy against Islamist entryism and the Muslim Brotherhood network. Farid Hafez of Georgetown University's Bridge Initiative called the vote a major symbolic victory for anti-Muslim forces. Amnesty International stated in June that Islamophobic violence in the United Kingdom had reached "emergency levels." The EU's Fundamental Rights Agency reports that one in two Muslims in Europe face racial discrimination. In the United States, California's attorney general reported that anti-Muslim hate crimes rose 54 percent in 2025, from 24 to 38.