Pre-school teacher stabbed to death in front of class in France

The mother of a pupil at a French pre-school has stabbed a female teacher to death in front of her class.

French president Francois Hollande expressed outrage at “this abominable drama” and sent the education minister to the school in Albi in southern France.

A police official in Albi said the mother attacked the teacher on Friday morning at the Edouard Herriot pre-school.

The teacher was leading a class of five and six-year-olds, according to the Albi mayor’s office.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls said the teacher was 34 years old.

Such deadly attacks in a school are extremely rare in France, which still feels scars from a shooting at a Jewish school in Toulouse in southern France in 2012 that left three children and a rabbi dead.

Reports claim the mother previously had problems with the police after allegedly abandoning her 15-year-old child earlier this year and failing to help police in the search.

Fellow teacher Robert Couffignal told BFM television that the school had never seen such violence, and urged better protection for teachers and attention to the tensions they face with parents.