One student dead and three injured in knife attack at French school

Military personnel stand guard near the site where a French high school student stabbed four other students (BFM TV via AP)

A student at a French high school stabbed four other students at his school Thursday, killing at least one and injuring three others before being arrested, police said.

The circumstances of the attack were not immediately clear.

A national police official said the attack occurred at the private Notre-Dame-de-Toutes-Aides High School in Doulon, near Nantes on France’s Atlantic coast.

The student stabbed four people before teachers subdued him, and he was later taken in by police, the official said.

Fatal attacks are relatively rare in French schools.

Education Minister Elisabeth Borne said on X that she was heading to the school with interior minister Bruno Retailleau to show “solidarity with victims and the school community”.

Images from the scene showed police surrounding the school as the investigation got under way.

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.