Teenager Shoots Headmaster, Teacher at French School

A 14-year-old boy armed with a hunting rifle has shot and wounded a headmaster and a teacher at a middle school in southern France, authorities said on Monday.

The incident occurred at Joseph-Lakanal Middle School in Aubagne, near Marseille.

Police said a third person also sustained a grazing injury from gunfire.

Authorities added that there was no apparent connection between the shooting and recent protests by high school students across France.

“The middle school was not affected by the high school students’ protest,” police told AFP.

Marseille Deputy Public Prosecutor Audrey Jouaneton said the teenager arrived at the school carrying a bag resembling a guitar case, from which he took a long firearm. He reportedly fired at least four shots, including inside a classroom where teachers and pupils were present. One bullet struck a blackboard.

The headmaster, aged 53, was hit by multiple pellets in his thighs and lower back, while a 37-year-old teacher sustained a buckshot injury to the thigh, according to Jacques Witkowski, prefect of the Bouches-du-Rhône region. Neither victim was in critical condition.

“The suspect, for reasons as yet unknown, fired at the headteacher, who was hit by a shower of pellets in the thighs and lower back,” Jacques Witkowski said. 

Witkowski said the teenager’s motive remained unclear and that he had no known history of criminal activity or radicalisation.

A pupil identified as Sarah told AFP that she was attending a Spanish lesson when the school’s fire alarm sounded. As she and her classmates entered the corridor, they encountered the armed teenager.

She said he began shooting and told them that he had come for the teachers, not the pupils.

Authorities have opened an investigation into attempted murder.

French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez, who visited the school, confirmed that the suspect’s parents had been taken into custody. He said investigators were working to establish how the teenager obtained the firearm and came to be carrying it at school.

President Emmanuel Macron praised the school staff for responding quickly to the attack, saying their composure helped prevent more serious consequences.

“I commend the composure and exemplary response of the teaching staff, which helped to prevent the worst from happening,” he said.

Education Minister Edouard Geffray, who also visited the scene, called for a broader response to violence in schools. He said educational institutions could not be expected to tackle serious violence on their own.

“All this seems to sit within a global social phenomenon,” he said. “We have to provide a societal response… Schools can’t do everything, schools cannot treat major violence.”

The shooting follows a series of violent incidents in French schools in recent months, prompting some institutions to introduce bag checks at their entrances. 

In February, a 14-year-old student in southern France stabbed an art teacher at least three times, leaving the 60-year-old in critical condition.

Last June, another 14-year-old student fatally stabbed a teaching assistant in eastern France.

In a separate incident in April last year, a student attacked people in several classrooms, injuring a girl and three other pupils.