Macron urges ruthless’ response

France's president yesterday called for a "ruthless" government response to those with "terrorist ideologies", days after a teacher was stabbed to death in what he has called an act of "Islamist terror".

Emmanuel Macron wants his ministers "to embody a ruthless state towards all those who harbour hate and terrorist ideologies," a senior aide told reporters.

He has called on police to comb through their files of radicalised people who could be deported from France to make sure no one was overlooked and has told the interior minister to take a "special approach to young men between the ages of 16-25 from the Caucasus", the aide said.

On Friday, 57-year-old Dominique Bernard, a French teacher, was stabbed to death at a school in the northeastern town of Arras.

Police have named the suspected perpetrator as Mohammed Moguchkov, 20, who was born in Russia's predominantly Muslim North Caucasus republic of Ingushetia and reportedly arrived in France at the age of five.