A teacher at a school in southwest France was killed on Wednesday in a stabbing attack by a teenage pupil during her class, the regional prosecutor said.
The teacher of Spanish, in her 50s, was giving the class at the school in the seaside town of Saint-Jean-de-Luz when the pupil attacked her with a knife.
She was given emergency aid at the scene, but Bayonne prosecutor Jerome Bourrier told AFP she died of her wounds. He added that the pupil was arrested.
The local daily Sud Ouest said the boy, aged 16, stormed into the teacher’s Spanish class with a knife and attacked the teacher.
The school, Saint-Thomas d’Aquin, is a private and Catholic-based establishment close to the center of Saint-Jean-de-Luz, which in summer is one of France’s best loved resorts on the sandy Basque country coast.
France’s Education Minister Pap Ndiaye said he was “extremely upset” by the death of the teacher and would be heading to the scene.
“I can barely imagine the trauma that this represents at a local level and more generally on a national scale,” said government spokesman Olivier Veran.
