- March 11: Imad Ibn Ziaten, a 30-year-old paratrooper, is shot dead in a residential neighbourhood of Toulouse by a man who escapes on a scooter.
Ziaten had apparently attracted the attention of his killer by publishing an ad in a newspaper offering his motorbike for sale. The ad specified that he was a soldier.
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- March 15: Corporal Abel Chennouf, 25, and Private Mohammed Legouade, 23, are shot dead by a man riding a scooter outside their barracks in Montauban, a town to the north of Toulouse. A third soldier with them is also shot and seriously injured.
A manhunt is launched.
- March 19: A man driving a powerful scooter shoots dead four people at a Jewish school in Toulouse. The dead are 30-year-old teacher Jonathan Sandler, his sons Arieh, 5, and Gabriel, 4, and seven-year-old Myriam Monsonego, the daughter of the school's principal.
The same weapon was used to kill the victims of the March 11, 15 and 19 shootings. The gunman, who was said by witnesses to be wearing a portable video camera, escapes.
President Nicolas Sarkozy visits the school and suspends his presidential election campaign, along with the other main candidates. He orders the highest terror alert level in the southwest region. Security around Jewish sites is strengthened.
The world reacts with outrage to the attacks. Israeli leaders strongly condemn the "despicable murder of Jews", while UN chief Ban Ki-moon condemns "in the strongest possible terms" the killing outside the Jewish school. The Vatican describes it as a "heinous" act.
- March 20: Schools observe a minute's silence.
Some 200 investigators question hundreds of people.
The bodies of the three French-Israeli children and a Jewish teacher are transported to Israel, accompanied by French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, for a funeral in Israel the next day.
- March 21: Three policemen are wounded when a special police unit tries to storm an apartment in Toulouse occupied by Mohamed Merah, a 23-year-old Frenchman of Algerian descent, who claims links to Al-Qaeda.
Merah, who says he carried out the killings to avenge the deaths of Palestinian children and protest against France's foreign wars, tells the special forces through the door he intends to give himself up. Prosecutor Francois Molins said the suspect boasted of bringing "France to its knees" and planned to kill again.
- March 22: Merah is shot dead by a sniper in a police assault on his flat.
