A 14-year-old pupil was detained on Monday after opening fire with a 12-gauge shotgun hidden inside a guitar case at Collège Joseph-Lakanal in Aubagne, east of Marseille, wounding the school principal and a teacher, French prosecutors said.
The ninth-grader entered the middle school shortly after 9 a.m. On the first floor he fired at the 53-year-old principal and a 37-year-old mathematics teacher, striking them with shotgun pellets. Both were taken to hospital; their injuries were not life-threatening.
He then set off the fire alarm and went up to the second floor, where he fired two more shots, according to the Marseille prosecutor’s office — once at the ground in front of a teacher, and once into an occupied classroom, where the shot struck the whiteboard. Pupils in the classroom were left badly shaken.
The school’s education adviser overpowered the boy in the stairwell and took the weapon from him before handing him to police officers who had arrived at the scene. The teenager was taken into custody, and an investigation for attempted murder was opened.
The motive is not yet known. Deputy prosecutor Audrey Jouaneton said investigators did not yet have enough evidence to say whether he had deliberately targeted the principal and the teacher: “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.”
Police said there was no evidence linking the attack to the weeks of student protests over school conditions that have rocked French high schools; the middle school was not affected by the blockades.
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez and Education Minister Édouard Geffray went to Aubagne. President Emmanuel Macron posted his solidarity on X with the wounded staff, the shocked pupils and parents, praising the school team’s calm and exemplary reaction.
The school is attended by nearly 625 pupils, and a psychological support unit was set up on site. A staff member’s quick intervention is credited with preventing worse.
Developing story
This is a developing story: the investigation is ongoing and the motive remains unclear.
Why it matters
School shootings are rare in France, and the attack has shaken parents and reignited debate over youth violence — Education Minister Geffray said the incident highlighted the rise of “unbridled violence” in society.
Sources: AP; Le Monde.
