14-year-old shoots principal and teacher at French school in Aubagne
A 14-year-old boy opened fire at a middle school near Marseille, wounding the principal and a teacher. A staff member disarmed him before police took him into custody.
Boy, 14, opens fire at middle school near Marseille, two staff wounded
A 14-year-old student concealed a shotgun inside a guitar case and opened fire Monday at the Joseph Lakanal middle school in Aubagne, wounding the school's principal and a teacher, prosecutors said. Jamaica-gleaner.com reports the incident as a rare instance of school gun violence in France.
Aubagne lies roughly 15 kilometres east of the Mediterranean port city of Marseille.
Marseille prosecutor Nicolas Bessone said the boy fired once or twice on the first floor, striking the principal and the teacher in the legs with pellets used in 12-gauge shotguns. Deputy prosecutor Audrey Jouaneton confirmed the two were transported to hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening.
The boy then moved to the second floor, where he fired twice more — once at the floor in front of a teacher and once inside a classroom, hitting the teaching board. No additional injuries resulted from those shots, though pupils present were described as "very shocked," Bessone said.
A staff member intercepted the boy in a stairwell and disarmed him. Jouaneton commended that intervention as an act of "extreme courage." Police subsequently took him into custody.
His motives remain unclear. "We still don't have sufficiently precise evidence to say that he wanted to target the teaching staff — this principal and the teacher — but they were in any case hit by the shots," Jouaneton said.
French President Emmanuel Macron praised the school staff's "composure and exemplary response" in a post on X, stating they "prevented an even worse outcome." Mental health counselling was offered to pupils following the incident.
Prosecutors said there is no indication the shooting was connected to ongoing protests by high school students across France demanding better-resourced schools. The middle school had not been affected by those protests on Monday, police said.
Education Minister Édouard Geffray posted on X that the act "once again highlights the rise of unbridled violence in our society, against which we must all mobilize."
Gun violence carried out by students in French schools is uncommon.
Source: Google News JM — Crime