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Prosecutor: French Teacher 'Invented' IS Stab Attack


FILE - Mounted French Republican Guards patrol under the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France, Nov. 28, 2015.
FILE - Mounted French Republican Guards patrol under the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France, Nov. 28, 2015.

A French nursery school teacher who claimed he was stabbed in his classroom by an Islamic State supporter has admitted to prosecutors he invented the story.

The 45-year-old teacher at a school in Aubervilliers, northeast of Paris, was hospitalized with light stab wounds in his side and throat.

He had earlier claimed a man in overalls and a balaclava had arrived while he was preparing his class on Monday, grabbed a box cutter and scissors that were in the room, and attacked him.

The teacher also claimed that the man shouted: "This is Daesh. This is a warning." Daesh is one of the names widely used for ISIS, or the Islamic State.

Prosecutors said they were still questioning the teacher, whose injuries were not considered life-threatening, over why he lied.

With France on edge and with the IS calling for attacks on French schools, the investigation had been immediately taken over by anti-terrorism prosecutors.

France remains under a state of emergency following last month's Islamist extremists attacks that left 130 people dead in Paris.

IS claimed responsibility for the attacks. In response, President Francois Hollande vowed to destroy the terror group and intensified an international military campaign against IS territory in Syria and Iraq.

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