Police arrest suspect after 15-minute shooting kills one in Trappes

A 39-year-old man identified as Kevin T. was arrested in the Paris suburb of Trappes on Friday after a 15-minute shooting spree that killed one person and injured five others.

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez declared the incident a terrorist crime. He stated that prosecutors are examining whether the suspect conspired with a specific terrorist group. A member of the suspect's immediate family circle was also taken into custody.

The attack began at 10:30 a.m. local time. The suspect drove through Trappes and La Verriere, two working-class communities with large immigrant and Muslim populations. He fired an automatic weapon at a petrol station, a medical centre, and a children's playground. Police found an older-style semiautomatic weapon from the World War II era in his car along with tear gas grenades.

Pengo Bassio Wangi, a young Black man, was the only person killed in the shooting. Five others were wounded, including a 12-year-old girl of North African descent. The girl, who was wearing a headscarf, was shot eight times and transported to a children's hospital for surgery. Three of the five injured victims are in critical condition. Another victim was a woman wearing a headscarf.

Local MP Laurent Mazaury said the suspect told officers he wanted to kill foreigners. Mazaury described the attacker as a racist person. The girl's mother told broadcaster RTL that she was unsure if her daughter was targeted specifically because of her headscarf. She emphasized that the girl was born in Trappes and has the right to build her life in France. She asked how anyone could do this to a child.

President Emmanuel Macron labeled the incident a racist terrorist attack. He called it a turning point in the life of the Republic and said France remains determined to fight racism in all forms. Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu described the case as very serious and said all security and judicial resources were fully mobilized.

Trappes mayor Ali Rabeh, who has Moroccan roots, said the gunman fired at random and wanted to cause a bloodbath. He called the attack objectively racist and probably Islamophobic. Rabeh stated that the victims could easily have been his own relatives. He said the crime of the wounded girl was probably being of color.

The shooting occurred while cost-of-living and student protests gripped the country. Authorities plan to deploy 70,000 police officers on Saturday for further demonstrations. 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. They pointed to Le Pen's proposal to fine women who wear the headscarf in public.

The French Muslim Council blamed promoters of anti-Muslim hate speech for the violence. It said they had blood on their hands. Rabeh called politicians who make negative comments about Muslims criminals. Monitors report that anti-Muslim hostility is growing in Europe. The EU's Fundamental Rights Agency states 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, increasing from 24 to 38 incidents.