French police have arrested a 14-year-old student suspected of opening fire and wounding a headteacher and a teacher at the Joseph Lakanal middle school in Aubagne, in southern France, according to local officials.
Marseille prosecutor Nicolas Bessone said the suspect carried a hunting rifle concealed in a guitar case and fired multiple shots. The student fired one or two rounds on the ground floor of the school, wounding the headteacher and a teacher in the legs, then went up to the second floor and fired two more shots.
Mayor Jean-Pierre Squillari said a school staff member disarmed the teenager before police arrived and arrested him.
According to police, a third person was grazed in the shooting in the town near Marseille, while the headteacher and the teacher were not in a critical condition after being hit by 12-gauge shotgun pellets.
Students at the school ran for cover after the suspect opened fire. One female student told Reuters that her maths teacher dismissed the sound of the first shot as noise from a nearby construction site. A second bang then triggered alarms and classes spilled out into the corridors.
“We panicked and ran,” the student said. “There were two exits: one leading to the gym and one leading outside. Survival instinct kicked in, and I ran outside.”
French Education Minister Edouard Geffray spoke about the incident on X, writing: “This unacceptable act is further evidence that uncontrolled violence is on the rise in our society, and we must all stand up against it.”
Shootings carried out by students in schools are rare in France. In 2017, a 16-year-old student armed with a rifle, a handgun and a small grenade opened fire at a secondary school in southern France, wounding three students and the headteacher.
The prime minister's office said the interior minister and the education minister were on their way to the scene.
There was no immediate indication that the shooting was linked to the high school student protests demanding better-resourced schools that have shaken France in recent weeks.
