French leader puts region on high alert as manhunt begins for ‘anti-Semitic’ killer

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Monday he was putting the country’s southwestern region on its highest terror alert level after a shooting at a Jewish school in Toulouse left four dead.

Sarkozy said the same gunman had attacked the school and last week shot three paratroopers, that it was “obvious” Monday’s attack was anti-Semitic.

Speaking after meeting of top security officials, Sarkozy said “exceptional security measures” would be taken in the Midi-Pyrenees region and that it was being put on “scarlet” terror alert, the highest possible level.

With the attacker still on the loose, police stepped up a manhunt in the city of a million people in southwestern France and prosecutors opened anti-terrorism investigations, although it was not clear whether the motive was political or racist.

Sarkozy said riot police units and national gendarmes would maintain security in the region “as long as this criminal has not been found”.

“There are already 120 investigators in Toulouse. With the prime minister, I have asked the interior and defense ministers to go to Toulouse. The interior minister will coordinate the investigation and stay in place for as long as it takes,” Sarkozy said.

The moves came after a killer shot dead three children and a teacher at a Jewish school Toulouse and police said the same gun and scooter had been used last week in the murders of three French paratroopers in the same area.

At the Ozar Hatorah, the gunman killed a 30-year old Hebrew teacher, his children aged three and six, and another child, the 8-year-old daughter of the school's principal, who died in her father's arms as medics tried to resuscitate her. A 17-year-old boy was also wounded.

Officials have said all three of the killed soldiers were of North African descent and at least two were Muslims.

“We know that it is the same person, the same weapon that killed the soldiers, the children and the teacher,” Sarkozy said, adding: “The anti-Semitic motive seems obvious.”

“This odious act cannot remain unpunished. All means, absolutely all means available, will be committed to neutralize this criminal,” he said.

Sarkozy also said he was temporarily putting aside his campaign for re-election in an April-May presidential vote. “I am suspending my participation in the election campaign at least until Wednesday,” he said.

Officials have said all three of the killed soldiers were of North African descent and at least two were Muslims.

Sarkozy said he would on Tuesday meet representatives of France’s Jewish and Muslim communities.

“I will meet them together, so that we can together say that all of France is at their sides,” he said.