PARIS (AP) — A high school student stabbed four other students at his school in western France on Thursday, killing at least one and injuring three others before being arrested, police said. The motive for the stabbing was unclear.
Such fatal attacks are quite rare in French schools.
France's Prime Minister Francois Bayrou ordered tighter security outside and inside schools nationwide, and called for new proposals within four weeks for preventing and punishing knife violence by teens and children. He said metal detectors at schools could be considered.
The 15-year-old student stabbed four people with a knife during a lunch break at the private Catholic Notre-Dame-de-Toutes-Aides High School in Nantes near France’s Atlantic coast, a national police official said.
Teachers subdued him, and he was later taken in by police, the official said. The official was not authorized to be publicly named according to national police policy.
The suspect had sent an email with unspecified grievances to all students just before the attack, students at the school told French media at the scene.
One of the targeted students died of wounds. Three were wounded, including one who was hospitalized in "very serious condition,″ Nantes Mayor Johanna Rolland told reporters. She did not give details about the suspect, but raised concerns about ″the mental health of the youth of this country.″
Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said the attack was ″probably″ an isolated act, without providing details about the investigation.
The school confined the students inside for hours while police secured the site and carried out questioning, according to French broadcasts. Police and armed military forces surrounded the area, and worried parents waited outside the perimeter.
French President Emmanuel Macron praised the courage of the teachers who intervened, saying in a post on X that they ″undoubtedly prevented other dramas.″
An official at the school, which is part of a complex housing a primary and middle school, would not comment on what happened, saying the school is concentrating on caring for the students who were on campus at the time. The school website was down.
“A terrible drama happened at midday today, and my thoughts go first to the teenage girl who lost her life, and to the three wounded students" and their families, Education Minister Elisabeth Borne said. The teachers "are in shock, and at the same time, very mobilized to return to class.''
France's counterterrorism prosecutor's office said it was ‘’evaluating'' the incident, but did not take over the investigation as it does when terrorist motives are suspected. Counterterrorism agencies across Europe and beyond have warned recently about a new generation of underage attackers or plotters who have fed on ultraviolent and potentially radicalizing content online.
It was unclear what led the student to carry out Thursday's attack.
This image taken from a BFM video shows military personnel standing guard near the site where a French high school student stabbed four other students at his school, killing at least one and injured three others before being arrested, police said, in Nantes, France, Thursday April 24, 2025. (BFM TV via AP)
