Learn French: Elle a verrouillé le tiroir de crainte que l'enfant touche le couteau. - She locked the drawer for fear that the child might touch the knife.

The conjunction de crainte que (for fear that) expresses a fear or worry about a potential outcome. Like its synonym de peur que, it always requires the following verb to be in the subjunctive mood.

Is touche really in the subjunctive? It looks exactly like the present indicative.

Yes, it is! For regular -er verbs like toucher, the present subjunctive forms for the singular subjects (je, tu, il/elle/on) and the third-person plural (ils/elles) are completely identical to their present indicative forms. You know it is the subjunctive here purely because of the conjunction that comes before it.

I thought de crainte que was supposed to be followed by ne. Why is it missing here?

You have a good memory! In formal or written French, de crainte que is usually followed by the ne explétif (an untranslated, non-negative ne), making it de crainte que l'enfant ne touche. However, in everyday spoken French, this extra ne is very frequently dropped, which is what happened in this sentence.

Could I use de peur que in this sentence instead?