One student dead and three injured in knife attack at French school
The attack occurred at the private Notre-Dame-de-Toutes-Aides High School in Doulon, near Nantes.
A high school student has been arrested after fatally stabbing a teenage girl and injuring three other pupils at his school in western France.
Prime Minister Francois Bayrou ordered tighter security outside and inside schools nationwide, and called for new proposals within four weeks for preventing and punishing knife violence by teenagers and children.
He said metal detectors at schools could be considered.
The 15-year-old student stabbed four people with a knife during a lunch break at the private Catholic Notre-Dame-de-Toutes-Aides High School in Nantes, a national police official said.
Teachers subdued him and he was later taken in by police, the official said.
The suspect had sent an email with unspecified grievances to all students just before the attack, pupils at the school told French media at the scene.
One of the injured pupils is in a “very serious condition″ in hospital, Nantes Mayor Johanna Rolland told reporters. She did not give details about the suspect but raised concerns about ″the mental health of the youth of this country″.
Interior minister Bruno Retailleau said the attack was ″probably″ an isolated act, without providing details about the investigation.
The school confined the students inside for hours while police secured the site and carried out questioning, according to French broadcasts. Police and armed military forces surrounded the area, and worried parents waited outside the perimeter.
French President Emmanuel Macron praised the courage of the teachers who intervened, saying in a post on X that they ″undoubtedly prevented other dramas″.
An official at the school, which is part of a complex housing a primary and middle school, would not comment on what happened, saying the school is concentrating on caring for the students who were on campus at the time.
“A terrible drama happened at midday today, and my thoughts go first to the teenage girl who lost her life, and to the three wounded students” and their families, education minister Elisabeth Borne said. The teachers “are in shock, and at the same time, very mobilised to return to class”.
