A 14-year-old student stabbed a 60-year-old art teacher in southern France on Tuesday, leaving the teacher in critical condition, according to a prosecutor.
The student was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, according to Raphael Balland, the public prosecutor in the southern city of Toulon.
There were no known “religious or political connotations” at this time.
“All we know is that there had been tensions with this teacher recently and that he was angry with her,” the prosecutor added during a press briefing.
Edouard Geffray, France’s education minister, went to the stabbing scene at La Guicharde secondary school in Sanary-sur-Mer.
“My thoughts immediately go out to the victim, her family, and the entire educational community, whose deep shock I share,” he wrote on X.
President Emmanuel Macron was constantly informed about the teacher’s condition, according to presidential advisers.
France has seen a number of situations in which students have attacked instructors or other students.
Last year, a 14-year-old student was charged with the murder of a teaching assistant after reportedly stabbing her to death in June.
He attacked the 31-year-old mother of a young boy while conducting a bag search in the eastern town of Nogent.
In a separate incident, a student killed a girl and injured many other students in a stabbing spree in Nantes, western France, in April.
Many educators remembered Samuel Paty, a geography and history teacher who was decapitated in 2020 by a radicalized young man after showing caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed to his class.
