The latest episode in the surge of incidents unsettling the French education system unfolded on Wednesday when a 12-year-old schoolgirl threatened a teacher with a knife at a school in northern France—adding to the growing concerns surrounding these occurrences.
No injuries were sustained in the incident that transpired in the northwestern city of Rennes; nevertheless, prosecutors have taken a proactive stance, commencing a criminal investigation to unravel the circumstances.
‘This morning, a pupil threatened a teacher with a knife during a lesson. The pupils, shocked, were immediately moved to safety,’ the local education authority said in a statement.
Born in 2011, the schoolgirl ‘came to class armed with a large knife with the apparent intention of killing her English teacher,’ said Rennes prosecutor Rennes Philippe Astruc.
Read also: France Shaken By School Stabbing Incident, Teacher Killed
‘During the lesson, in class, she brandished the knife at the victim who fled running’ before she was ‘disarmed by the staff of the establishment’ of the Hautes Ourmes junior high school, he added.
Schools in France, home to sizable Muslim and Jewish communities, are experiencing growing tensions, occasionally connected to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.
The northern town of Arras became the site of a grievous event in October, as a radicalized Islamist carried out a fatal stabbing against his former teacher, Dominique Bernard.
Teachers at a school outside Paris made a collective decision earlier this week, opting not to work, as a group of students raised objections to the classroom presentation of a painting by Renaissance master Giuseppe Cesari, which depicted several nude women.
Recent legal proceedings in France saw a court convicting six teenagers last week for their involvement in the 2020 killing of teacher Samuel Paty outside his secondary school near Paris, perpetrated by a radicalized Islamist.