This is now even more disturbing; off-hand, we don’t remember a similar fact-pattern. From   Jewish School Shooting in France – by Scott Sayare and Steven Erlanger at The New York Times (10:04 today):

¶ TOULOUSE, France — A day after an attack outside a Jewish school here killed a rabbi and three young children, the French authorities offered fresh details on Tuesday of an assault that has stunned the nation and terrorized the city, saying the lone gunman seemed to be filming his actions as he coolly shot his victims to death.

Claude Guéant, the interior minister, told a French radio station that surveillance footage from the school’s security cameras showed what appeared to be a video camera strapped to the gunman’s chest — adding a lurid detail to the most deadly attack against Jews in France in 30 years.

With the nation’s terrorism alert at its highest level — “scarlet” — the French authorities pursued a broad and high-profile search on Tuesday for the assailant, but Mr. Guéant said little was known about him.

The attack has been linked to two earlier shootings of French paratroopers, with the police saying that the same gun, a .45-caliber automatic pistol, was used in all three assaults. The authorities have also said that the methods were the same — a man on a powerful motorbike, also the same in each instance, who killed and then fled.

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The “scarlet” alert level, one step short of a formal state of emergency, gives security forces wide powers that include the authority to close some public places like railroad stations and deploy mixed patrols of police officers and soldiers, news reports said.

On Monday, Mr. Sarkozy also said he had sent gendarmes and riot police officers to guard all Jewish and Muslim schools and places of worship in the region until the killer is stopped.

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The suspect pursued his last victim, an 8-year-old girl, into the concrete courtyard, seizing and stopping her by her hair, said Ms. Yardeni, who viewed surveillance footage of the killing.

His gun appeared to jam at that point, Ms. Yardeni said. Still holding the girl, the killer then changed weapons, from what police identified as a 9-millimeter pistol to the .45-caliber. He shot her in the head and left, never removing his motorcycle helmet.

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On Monday, the killer arrived and fled on a motorbike, following the same approach used in the two previous attacks. In those shootings, a man wearing a motorcycle helmet killed three French paratroopers and critically wounded another. The soldiers were all Arab or black, and appeared to have been targeted specifically, witnesses said.

“We know that it is the same person, the same arm that killed the soldiers, the children and a teacher,” Mr. Sarkozy said Monday night.

“We are faced with an individual who targets his victims specifically,” said Élisabeth Allannic, a spokeswoman for the Parisprosecutor’s office, which is handling the investigation. “He targets his victims for what they represent.” The interior minister, Mr. Guéant, said it was worrying that the gunman seemed to act with impunity and coldness, and that he clearly had a sophisticated knowledge of weapons.

From the facts as reported, this doesn’t necessarily have the feel of a single operative: we assume the French authorities have open eyes to the possibility of confederates: lookouts, blocking elements to cover his retreat, anyone conducting pre-attack surveillance, and assistance in leaving the scene (a means of hiding the motorcycle, perhaps in a larger vehicle, and providing an opportunity to change clothes); and whether the attacker has picked targets which have approaches not covered by security cameras – and multiple escape routes.

In other words, we’re unlikely to be seeing someone with no specialized training. The use of two handguns, with ammunition which is not interchangeable, may be notable. Let’s wish the French authorities good luck with a difficult – and important investigation.