14-year-old shoots down school principal in Marseille – police arrest teenager

Shots were fired at the Collège Joseph-Lakanal in Aubagne near Marseille on Monday morning.

The school principal and a teacher were hit, and a third victim was struck, according to authorities.

The suspect is a 14-year-old who attends middle school.

The police arrested him, they told the AFP news agency.

According to information from the broadcaster BFMTV, a pellet from a hunting rifle hit the 53-year-old headmaster in the right hip.

A 37-year-old teacher was hit in the thigh by a ricochet.

At least four shots were heard.

The teenager fired shots inside the building before school staff overpowered him.

Paris Match magazine reported that he used a 12-gauge hunting rifle.

“The student has been arrested,” the French prime minister’s office said.

The headmaster and the teacher received medical care and there was “no danger to their lives.”

“No student was injured,” Aubagne mayor Jean-Pierre Squillari told reporters.

According to BFMTV, the Marseille public prosecutor's office opened an investigation into "attempted murder".

The motive is still unclear.

Numerous parents, the prefect of the Bouches-du-Rhône department, Squillari and the school council gathered in front of the school.

Psychological support was set up.

It is still unclear whether the crime is related to the student protests in France that have been going on for weeks.

The prefecture emphasized that the school was not affected by the protests.

An investigative source and the prefecture told BFMTV that the shooting had “no connection” to the student movement.

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu asked Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez and Education Minister Édouard Geffray to travel to Aubagne.

The State Secretary for Vocational Training, Sabrina Roubache, is traveling with them.

Geffray wrote on

The Department of Education will “stand united and strong, as always, behind a hard-hit education community.”