Teenager Wounds Two Teachers in French School Shooting

French police arrested a 14-year-old student on Monday suspected of firing a shotgun at the principal and a teacher at a middle school in Aubagne, a town east of Marseille. The two educators sustained non-life-threatening injuries from pellets, believed to be from a 12-gauge hunting rifle, and were hospitalized. The incident is a rare occurrence of school gun violence in France.

According to prosecutors, the student allegedly fired one or two shots on the first floor of the Joseph Lakanal middle school, hitting the principal and a teacher in the legs. He then proceeded to the second floor, firing again twice, once at the floor in front of a teacher and another shot into a classroom that struck a teaching board. No students in the classroom were hit, but they were described as being “very shocked.”

A staff member reportedly disarmed the boy in a stairwell before police arrived and took him into custody. Mental health counseling was offered to students following the event.

Authorities stated there is no immediate evidence to suggest the shooting was connected to recent widespread protests by high school students demanding better school resources, which have been ongoing in France for several weeks. The middle school in Aubagne was not affected by these demonstrations on Monday, according to police.

Gun violence in French schools remains uncommon. In 2017, a 16-year-old wounded three students and a principal with a rifle and handguns. More recently, in 2025, a 14-year-old student fatally stabbed a middle school employee during a bag check, and another 15-year-old student killed one peer and injured three others in a separate stabbing incident at a high school.

Education Minister Édouard Geffray commented on the incident via X, stating, “This unacceptable act once again highlights the rise of unbridled violence in our society, against which we must all mobilize. In words as well as deeds.”