12-year-old shot eight times as gunman rages through Paris suburbs

A 12-year-old girl was shot eight times during a 15-minute rampage that killed one man and wounded five others in northern France on Friday. The attacker drove through Trappes and La Verrière, two working-class communities on the outskirts of Paris, before police arrested him. The violence began around 10:30 a.m. local time, according to officials.

The suspect, a 39-year-old man identified as Kevin T., used an automatic weapon to fire at a petrol station, a medical centre, and a children's playground. He was taken into custody shortly after the spree began. Investigators recovered an older-style semiautomatic weapon from the World War II era and tear gas grenades from his vehicle, a local police chief told French media.

Local MP Laurent Mazaury said the suspect told officers he wanted to "kill foreigners." Mazaury described the attacker as a racist person. French media reported that the deceased man, named Pengo Bassio Wangi, was young and Black. Among the five injured was a woman wearing a headscarf and the girl, who is of North African descent. Prosecutors stated that three of the five wounded are in critical condition.

The girl's mother told broadcaster RTL that her daughter was moved to a children's hospital for surgery. She asked whether her daughter was targeted because of her headscarf and noted that the girl was born in Trappes. "How could anyone do this to a child?" the mother asked. She emphasized that her daughter has the right to build her life in France.

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez called the incident "clearly a terrorist crime." Prosecutors are examining whether the suspect conspired with a terrorist group. A member of his immediate family circle was also taken into custody. 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 event a "racist terrorist attack" and a "turning point in the life of our Republic and our nation." He said France remained determined to fight racism "in all its forms." Trappes mayor Ali Rabeh, who has Moroccan roots, said the gunman fired at random and wanted to cause a "bloodbath." Rabeh called the attack "objectively a racist attack, probably Islamophobic." He said the victims could easily have been his own relatives. "Her crime was probably being of colour," he said of the wounded girl.

The attack occurred 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. Far-right National Rally leader Marine Le Pen condemned the shooting as "barbaric." Muslim groups accused the populist right of fostering hatred through Islamophobic rhetoric. 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."