France classifies Trappes rampage as terrorist act after gunman kills one and wounds five

A 39-year-old man identified as Kevin T. drove an automatic weapon through two northern French suburbs on Friday, killing one person and injuring five others. The attack began at 10:30 a.m. local time in Trappes and La Verriere, areas near Paris with large immigrant populations. Police stopped the rampage after 15 minutes and arrested the suspect at the scene.

Trappes Mayor Ali Rabeh described the gunman as firing at random to create a bloodbath. Rabeh, who has Moroccan roots, stated that the victims could easily have been his own relatives. He called the incident objectively racist and probably Islamophobic. The mayor noted that the wounded girl’s crime was likely being of color.

Pengo Bassio Wangi, a young Black man, was named as the sole fatality. French media reported that the five injured included a woman wearing a headscarf and a 12-year-old girl also wearing a headscarf. The girl’s mother told broadcaster RTL that her daughter, who is of North African descent, was shot eight times. The mother asked how anyone could do this to a child and stressed that the girl was born in Trappes. Prosecutors confirmed that three of the five injured people are in critical condition.

Local MP Laurent Mazaury said the suspect told officers he wanted to kill foreigners. Mazaury stated, “I think we are facing a racist person.” Interior Minister Laurent Nunez declared the incident clearly a terrorist crime. Prosecutors are currently examining whether the suspect conspired with a terrorist group. A member of the suspect’s immediate family circle was also taken into custody.

Investigators found an older-style semiautomatic weapon from the World War II era in the suspect’s car. Tear gas grenades were also recovered from the vehicle. Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu described the case as very serious and said all security and judicial resources were fully mobilized. President Emmanuel Macron labeled the event a racist terrorist attack and a turning point for the nation. He said France remained determined to fight racism in all its forms.

The shooting occurred while cost-of-living and student protests gripped 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. 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 the headscarf in public. Rabeh said politicians who make negative comments about Muslims are criminals. The French Muslim Council blamed promoters of anti-Muslim hate speech, saying they have blood on their hands.

Monitors indicate that anti-Muslim hostility is growing. The European Parliament passed a resolution last week calling for an EU strategy against Islamist entryism and the Muslim Brotherhood network. The vote was 381 to 167 with 15 abstentions. Researcher Farid Hafez of Georgetown University’s Bridge Initiative called it 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 says one in two Muslims in Europe face racial discrimination. California’s attorney general reported that anti-Muslim hate crimes in the US rose 54 percent in 2025, from 24 to 38.