Pupil detained after shooting wounds two at French school

A 14-year-old pupil was detained after shooting and wounding the principal and a teacher at a middle school in southern France on Monday, prosecutors and local officials said. A staff member restrained and disarmed the pupil before police arrived. No children were injured.

The pupil brought a hunting shotgun into Joseph Lakanal Middle School in Aubagne in a guitar case, officials said. He fired on the first floor, wounding the principal and a teacher, then went upstairs and fired twice more, Marseille prosecutor Nicolas Bessone said.

On the second floor, the pupil fired once towards the floor in front of a teacher and again inside an occupied classroom, hitting the chalkboard, Bessone said. “Neither [that] teacher nor the students were injured, though they were severely shaken.” A third person sustained a minor injury, according to reports cited by the BBC and police accounts reported by Al Jazeera.

The principal and teacher were treated for injuries that were not life-threatening, Aubagne Mayor Jean-Pierre Squillari said. The BBC reported that the principal, 53, was shot in the leg and lower back, while the teacher, 37, was hit in the thigh. Al Jazeera, citing police, said the two were struck with ammunition used in 12-gauge shotguns.

The Marseille prosecutor’s office opened an attempted murder investigation. Officials did not give a motive.

Students described confusion as shots rang out. One student told Reuters, in an account carried by Al Jazeera, that her maths teacher initially thought the first bang came from nearby construction. Another blast followed, an alarm sounded and classes emptied into the corridors.

“We were panicking; we ran,” she said. “There were two ways out: one passage to the sports hall and one passage to go outside. Survival instinct took over, and I ran towards the outside.”

Two other pupils told French broadcaster BFMTV that they came face-to-face with the pupil after a fire alarm sounded. “He was a metre away, with his hunting rifle. He fired at the ground,” one said. “We started to run away, but he followed us for a while. We started screaming.”

Squillari said students were secured quickly and a psychological support unit was set up at the school. “The kids saw practically nothing since it happened in the hallway,” he told reporters, adding that some were distressed and being seen by a psychologist. He told BFMTV that the pupil’s father had requested a meeting with a school educational adviser, but said he knew nothing more about it.

President Emmanuel Macron expressed his “full solidarity and total support” for the teachers, pupils and parents. “I salute the composure and exemplary response of the educational team, which made it possible to avoid the worst,” he wrote on social media.

Education Minister Edouard Geffray and Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez went to the scene. Geffray called the shooting “unacceptable” and said it was evidence of rising violence in society.

There was no immediate indication that the shooting was connected to protests over school conditions, according to accounts reported by the BBC and Al Jazeera.