Paris Suburb Shooter Kills One and Wounds Five in Attack Officials Label Terrorist

A thirty-nine-year-old man named Kevin T. drove through two working-class communities near Paris on Friday morning, firing an automatic weapon at a petrol station, a medical centre, and a children's playground. The rampage lasted approximately fifteen minutes before police arrested the suspect. One person was killed and five others were injured in the attack. Among the wounded is a twelve-year-old girl who sustained serious injuries.

The shooting began at 10:30 a.m. local time in Trappes and La Verriere. These areas on the outskirts of Paris have large immigrant and Muslim populations. Local MP Laurent Mazaury stated that the suspect told officers he wanted to "kill foreigners." Mazaury added, "I think we are facing a racist person." French media reports indicate the deceased man was young and Black. The injured included a woman wearing a headscarf and the twelve-year-old girl, who was also wearing a headscarf. The victim who died was identified as Pengo Bassio Wangi.

The girl's mother said her daughter, who is of North African descent, was shot eight times. She was moved to a children's hospital for surgery. Prosecutors confirmed that three of the five injured people are in critical condition. The mother told broadcaster RTL, "How could anyone do this to a child?" She questioned if her daughter was targeted because of her headscarf and emphasized that the girl was born in Trappes and has the right to build her life in France.

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez declared the incident "clearly a terrorist crime." Investigations are ongoing to determine if the suspect conspired with a terrorist group. A member of his immediate family circle has been taken into custody. Investigators found an older-style semiautomatic weapon from the World War II era in the suspect's car, along with tear gas grenades. Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu described the case as "very serious" and said all security and judicial resources were fully mobilised.

President Emmanuel Macron labelled the incident a "racist terrorist attack." He called it a "turning point in the life of our Republic and our nation." Macron said France remains determined to fight racism "in all its forms." Ali Rabeh, the mayor of Trappes who has Moroccan roots, said the gunman fired at random and wanted 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," regarding the wounded girl.

The attack occurs while cost-of-living and student protests grip the country. Authorities plan to deploy 70,000 police officers on Saturday when more demonstrations are expected. Some far-right voices have blamed Muslim youths for the unrest. Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Rally, condemned the shooting as "barbaric." However, 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 as she campaigns for the presidency.

Rabeh called politicians who make negative comments about Muslims "criminals." The French Muslim Council blamed promoters of anti-Muslim hate speech, stating they have "blood on their hands." Monitors report that anti-Muslim hostility is growing more widely. Last week, the European Parliament passed a resolution calling for an EU strategy against Islamist entryism and the Muslim Brotherhood network. The vote was 381 to 167 with 15 abstentions.

Farid Hafez, a researcher at Georgetown University's Bridge Initiative, called the parliamentary vote a major symbolic victory for anti-Muslim forces. Amnesty International said in June that Islamophobic violence in the United Kingdom had reached "emergency levels." The EU's Fundamental Rights Agency states that one in two Muslims in Europe face racial discrimination. In the US, California's attorney general reported anti-Muslim hate crimes rose 54 percent in 2025, increasing from 24 to 38.