Teacher left fighting for her life after ‘being stabbed repeatedly by pupil’

A 60-year-old art teacher is fighting for her life in southern France after being st@bbbed multiple times by a teenage pupil at her school, authorities said on Tuesday, February 3.

The woman, who has not been named, was attacked by a 14-year-old student at La Guicharde middle school in Sanary-sur-Mer, between Toulon and Marseille.

She was rushed to hospital “in a critical condition”, while the suspected attacker, who has also not been identified, was arrested on suspicion of “attempted murder”, according to a local police spokesman.

An investigating source said: “There were three or four stabs, two in the abdomen and one or two in the arm,” adding that the boy “had been shouting threats at the teacher” before the attack.

Édouard Geffray said he would be “going to the scene immediately” and expressed his “profound shock” over the incident.

The stabbing comes amid heightened concern in France following a series of knife attacks targeting teachers in schools, some of which authorities have linked to terrorism.

In October 2023, a French literature teacher was stabbed to death at the Gambetta-Carnot school in Arras, in northern France.

Three other staff members were injured in that attack, which was carried out by Mohammed Mogouchkov, a 20-year-old alleged ISIS supporter who remains on remand awaiting trial.

Three years earlier, teacher Samuel Paty was killed in Éragny, a suburb of Paris, after being targeted by an Islamist attacker.

The perpetrator, Abdoullakh Abouyezidovich Anzorov, an 18-year-old Russian refugee, was shot dead by police minutes later. More recently, in September last year, a 66-year-old music teacher was attacked with a knife at a middle school in Benfeld, eastern France.

And in June, a supervisor at the Françoise Dolto middle school in Nogent, near Paris, died after being stabbed by a student. French authorities have repeatedly said schools remain under close security monitoring as investigations continue into violent incidents involving pupils and staff.