"He approached her and stuck a large knife in her chest, without saying anything": a Spanish teacher at a private high school in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, in the Pyrenees- Atlantiques, was killed by a student on Wednesday February 22 in a classroom, an extremely rare tragedy in France.
"We didn't know how to react, there was a student who opened the door and we all left. I ran away, I left the establishment and the father of a friend came to pick me up, I did not feel safe in high school," added Inès, 16, who was in the second class at the time of the events.
The alleged perpetrator of the attack, also 16 years old and arrested after the fact, was placed in police custody, said the prosecution.
He was not known to the police or justice.
An investigation was also opened for "assassination".
The victim, whom the emergency services could not revive, is a 52-year-old teacher, according to the prosecution.
"This is a Spanish teacher who had been in this establishment for a long time. She was conscientious," Serge Hastoy, FEP-CFDT delegate from the Basque Country, told AFP.
When the police arrived around 9:50 a.m., the attacker "had been disarmed, the scene was frozen and the students were confined", a source familiar with the matter told AFP, adding that he "had in his possession a very big blade, at least 10 centimeters".
"There are no terrorist motives or resentment behind the reasons for his action, which seems more like a stroke of madness. The student was indeed making incoherent remarks," added this source.
"I don't really know this boy, we're just in Spanish class together but there was never a problem between him and the teacher in class," said Inès.
A minute of silence
A minute of silence will be observed Thursday at 3 p.m. "in all schools" in France in tribute to the teacher, said Minister of National Education Pap Ndiaye during a press conference.
"It's a sad day for National Education, it's a sad day of course for this establishment", he added, accompanied by his counterpart from the Civil Service Stanislas Guerini.
The Saint-Thomas d'Aquin Catholic high school, where the facts occurred, is an establishment in the center of Saint-Jean-de-Luz, with just over 1,100 students.
"It's a classic establishment, without any particular problems, in which teachers and students feel good," said Serge Hastoy, from the FEP-CFDT.
After being confined for about two hours in their classrooms, the students left the establishment at midday, with the exception of those who were in class with the deceased teacher, who left the premises two hours later, noted an AFP correspondent.
This is the first time that a teacher has been killed in office in France since the assassination of Samuel Paty, a history and geography professor beheaded on October 16, 2020 by a young radicalized Islamist man.
His death had aroused great emotion among the 860,000 teachers in the country.
Assaults are frequent, but AFP has recorded less than a dozen murders over the past four decades.
In July 2014, a 34-year-old teacher was stabbed to death by the mother of a student at a school in Albi.
In August 1996, while he was walking at the Dax feria, a 51-year-old English teacher was killed by two young people, including one of his students who had failed in the baccalaureate.
On September 13 in a high school in Caen, a 15-year-old high school student stabbed a teacher in the throat who was hospitalized for a few days.
With AFP
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