The mayor of Trappes, a city west of Paris, has condemned a deadly shooting as a “racist, probably Islamophobic” attack that left one person dead and four others wounded, including a 12-year-old girl.

The shooting took place at a gas station on Friday, about 20 kilometers west of Paris.

Authorities said the suspected perpetrator, a 39-year-old man whose identity has not been released, was arrested.

The gunman was “firing at random, wanting to cause a bloodbath,” Trappes Mayor Ali Rabeh told BFMTV.

Rabeh, described the shooting as an attack driven by racism and possibly anti-Muslim hatred. “This was an attack with racist, likely Islamophobic, overtones,” he said.

Rabeh called for “collective clarity” about those spreading propaganda that fuels violence, warning that such rhetoric can ideologically embolden people capable of carrying out attacks.

He denounced public figures who blame Arab and Muslim communities for society’s problems, calling those who spread hateful ideologies “criminals.”

The person killed was visiting family and had done nothing to provoke the attack, the mayor said.

The victim was gunned down in a burst of automatic fire that also struck a 12-year-old girl, Rabeh said, adding that she was “clinging to life. Her ‘crime’ is, in all likelihood, the fact that she is a person of color.” 

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Nicolas Dainville, mayor of neighboring La Verrière, told AFP that the girl had been shot eight times and was seriously wounded.

French prosecutors have reportedly opened an investigation into murder in connection with a suspected terrorist enterprise.

The shooting comes amid growing concerns over racism and anti-Muslim hostility in France, where Arab and Muslim communities have increasingly found themselves at the center of political debates over immigration, national identity, and public security.

US President Donald Trump recently blamed “migrants, jihadists and communists” for student-led protests over the cost of living in France.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, claimed that France was under siege from an “invasion of extremist Islam.”

Human rights advocates have stated that far-right movements, including the National Rally, fuel racist and anti-Muslim sentiment.