A teacher is in a critical condition after she was stabbed several times by a 14-year-old pupil during class in a school in southern France, police have said.
Prosecutors said the art teacher, 60, was stabbed three to four times with a knife in her classroom at a middle school in Sanary-sur-Mer on Tuesday afternoon.
The pupil was arrested and was being detained on suspicion of attempted murder, the local Toulon prosecutor, Raphael Balland added.
No religious nor political motive could be found for the attack, but Mr Balland said there are believed to have been tensions between the pupil and the teacher. The attacker had no criminal record.
France’s education minister, Edouard Geffray, said that he was headed to La Guicharde school, which is where local media has pinpointed the incident.
“My thoughts immediately go out to the victim, her family and the entire educational community, whose deep shock I share,” he wrote on X.
Security in France’s schools has been the subject of intense debate in recent years. In June, then-Prime Minister Francois Bayrou said the government would test adding security gates at schools after a school aide was stabbed during a bag search.
In September, a music teacher was stabbed by a 14-year-old in the face by a student during class in a middle school in northeastern France. In 2020, the murder of teacher Samuel Paty after he showed pupils caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad in a class on free speech sparked a political uproar.
More to follow…
