Middle School Student Arrested as Principal and Teacher Shot in France
by Kurt Zindulka · BreitbartA ninth-grade student has been arrested after allegedly shooting a principal and a teacher at a middle school in Southern France on Monday morning.
A 53-year-old principal at the Joseph-Lakanal middle school in Aubagne and a 37-year-old teacher were injured after a student allegedly entered the building with a 12-gauge shotgun and opened fire on Monday, local paper La Provence reports.
According to deputy mayor Giovanni Schipani, the teenage shooter is believed to have been in the 9th grade at the school, where he is said to have been “harassed”. Thankfully, Schipani added that the principal and teacher are “not in danger” of losing their lives. The student was reportedly disarmed by another school staff member before being arrested.
Speaking to the paper, a student witness said that she was forced to flee the shooting with a classmate: “I was pulling him by the arm to make us move forward. When we turned around, we saw the shooter reloading his weapon behind us, before firing down the stairs. We ran as fast as we could; it was survival instinct… There was blood on the floor. I was just trying to find somewhere to run.”
She added that the shooter was previously her friend in the sixth grade but that she had stopped talking to him.
The local police prefecture said that the suspect is “not known for any acts of delinquency or radicalisation.”
Despite local authorities admitting that the motive is currently “unknown”, they have sought to deny that there was a connection to the broader student movement, which has seen youths riot across the country over the past month, and particularly over the past week.
According to the Ministry of National Education, over 100 teachers and other school staff members have been injured during the riots, including at least eight school faculty members on Monday alone.
Commenting on the broader educational environment in France, National Rally president Jordan Bardella remarked in the wake of the shooting: “In recent days, the serious assaults targeting members of the educational staff bear witness to a barbarisation of society that no limit can contain any longer.
“An authority shock is necessary: the State must systematically protect its representatives, disruptive students must be kept at a distance, and violence committed against teachers must be very severely punished. No teacher should fear for their safety and their life in the exercise of their profession.”
For his part, President Emmanuel Macron said: “To the principal and the teacher injured this morning in a middle school in Aubagne, to the students and parents in shock, I extend my full solidarity and total support.
“I salute the composure and exemplary response of the educational team, which made it possible to avoid the worst.”