French teacher invented Aubervilliers school attack

A teacher at a French preschool who said he had been stabbed by a man shouting "Islamic State" has admitted he made the story up, prosecutors say.

The teacher said he had been attacked while alone in a classroom in Aubervilliers, a suburb of Paris.

The local prosecutor's office said he was now being questioned as to why he lied about the incident.

France remains on high alert following the terror attacks in Paris on 13 November that left 130 people dead.

The 45-year-old teacher has been treated in hospital for knife wounds to his side and neck.

According to his account, a man had attacked him with a box cutter or scissors and had shouted: "This is for Daesh [Islamic State]. It's a warning".

The incident sparked a manhunt in the northern suburb, as police tried to track down the alleged attacker.

The anti-terrorism branch of the Paris prosecutor's office also opened an investigation for attempted murder in relation to a terrorist act.

Classes at the school were cancelled.

Last month, the Islamic State's French-language magazine Dar-al-Islam recently urged followers to kill teachers in France, describing them as "enemies of Allah" for teaching secularism, AFP news agency reports.

Aubervilliers is in the Seine-Saint-Denis department of the Ile-de-France region.