A man identified as Kévin T. is in custody after a shooting in Trappes and La Verrière, west of Paris, on Friday 23 October 2026. President Emmanuel Macron has called the attack racist and terrorist. 

One person died, and five were injured in the attack, including a 12-year-old girl.

It was "objectively a racist, probably Islamophobic attack," the local mayor has said.

What we know happened: 

On Friday 23 one person was killed and five were wounded when the suspect “Kévin T” allegedly opened fire for multiple minutes from a car. Among those hurt was a 12-year-old girl. Kévin T was arrested.

France's counter-terror police said one person was killed and five wounded.

Reports describe the legal qualification as "murder in connection with a terrorist enterprise". It is not confirmed whether a formal charge has been made, and no ideology has been publicly confirmed by prosecutors.

President Macron called the shooting a racist terrorist attack carried out on the basis of a racist ideology. He gave two reasons for the terrorism label: the suspect's premeditation, and statements the suspect made that investigators have clearly recorded. 

The victims, he said, were targeted because of their skin colour or the religion attributed to them. 

When a French president says victims were chosen because of skin colour or attributed religion, and prosecutors treat the case as terrorism, it is a rare official acknowledgement of a racist motive in a terrorism case. How the attack is named, and how widely, shapes how it is understood. 

What happens next?

French terrorism cases follow a defined sequence. The PNAT, counter-terror police, take jurisdiction and the suspect is held in police custody. An investigating judge then decides whether to open a formal investigation. Until that point, the suspect has not been charged and the legal qualification can still change.