Teenager Attacks Jewish Teacher in Marseille With a Machete

By ALISSA J. RUBIN JAN. 11, 2016

A soldier at a Jewish school in Marseille, France, on Monday after a teenager attacked a Jewish teacher. Credit Jean-Paul Pelissier/Reuters

PARIS — A teenager attacked a Jewish teacher with a machete in the southern French city of Marseille on Monday, and afterward told the police that he had carried out the attack in the name of God and the Islamic State, according to the Marseille prosecutor.

The teacher’s back and one of his hands were wounded, but not severely, according to Brice Robin, the prosecutor. The teacher fell after he was hit in the back and then protected himself with a Torah he was carrying while kicking at his assailant, Mr. Robin said. The assault took place near a Jewish school.

The teenager, who will soon turn 16, is of Turkish-Kurd origin, according to the prosecutor. The majority of Kurds oppose the Islamic State, so it was unclear what had motivated the teenager to carry out the attack.

The French intelligence services and the police did not have the teenager on a watch list, and he was doing well in school, Mr. Robin said.

Senior French officials condemned the attack, and President François Hollande released a statement calling it “abominable and unjustifiable.”