Kevin T. Wanted to Kill Foreigners

A gunman killed one person and injured five others in Trappes, a working-class suburb north of Paris, on Friday morning.

The attack began at 10:30 a.m. local time when the suspect drove through Trappes and La Verrière, areas with large immigrant and Muslim populations. He fired an automatic weapon at a petrol station, a medical center, and a children's playground. Police arrested the 39-year-old man, identified as Kevin T., after a spree that lasted approximately 15 minutes.

Local MP Laurent Mazaury said the suspect told officers he wanted to kill foreigners. Mazaury described the attacker as a racist. French media reported that the dead man, Pengo Bassio Wangi, was young and Black. Among the wounded was a 12-year-old girl of North African descent who was shot eight times and hospitalized for surgery. Prosecutors stated that three of the five injured individuals are in critical condition.

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez confirmed that the investigation is ongoing but declared the incident clearly a terrorist crime. Prosecutors are examining whether the suspect conspired with a terrorist group. A member of the suspect's immediate family circle has also been taken into custody. Investigators found a World War II era semiautomatic weapon and tear gas grenades in the suspect's car.

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

Trappes mayor Ali Rabeh, who has Moroccan roots, said the gunman fired at random with the intent to cause a bloodbath. Rabeh called the attack objectively racist and probably Islamophobic. He noted that the victims could easily have been his own relatives. The girl's mother told broadcaster RTL that her daughter was born in Trappes and has the right to build her life in France. She asked if her daughter was targeted because of her headscarf.

The shooting occurred while cost-of-living and student protests, often violent, grip the country. Authorities plan to deploy 70,000 police officers on Saturday for expected demonstrations. Some far-right voices have blamed Muslim youths for the unrest.

National Rally leader Marine Le Pen 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 headscarves in public. Rabeh called politicians who make negative comments about Muslims criminals. The French Muslim Council blamed promoters of anti-Muslim hate speech, saying they have 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. Researcher Farid Hafez of Georgetown University's Bridge Initiative called it a major symbolic victory for anti-Muslim forces. Amnesty International reported in June that Islamophobic violence in the United Kingdom 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 that anti-Muslim hate crimes rose 54 percent in 2025, from 24 to 38.