French police were questioning a 14-year-old student who allegedly stabbed to death a 31-year-old school assistant on Tuesday as pupils’ bags were being checked outside the gates of a school in Nogent in northeastern France.
The teenager was being held at the gendarmerie of Nogent while being questioned, the Haute-Marne Prefecture said.
“While watching over our children in Nogent, an educational assistant lost her life, the victim of a senseless wave of violence,” President Emmanuel Macron wrote on X.
“The nation is in mourning and the government is mobilised to reduce crime,” he added.
Alors qu’elle veillait sur nos enfants à Nogent, une assistante d’éducation a perdu la vie, victime d’un déferlement de violence insensé.
— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) June 10, 2025
Tous, nous sommes aux côtés de sa famille, de ses proches, de ses collègues et de l’ensemble de la communauté éducative.…
The Chaumont public prosecutor Denis Devallois said the alleged suspect had stabbed the school assistant several times with a knife.
“The threat of bladed weapons among our children has become critical.. It is up to us to make this widespread scourge a public enemy,” Prime Minister Francois Bayrou wrote on X.
La menace des armes blanches chez nos enfants est devenue critique. Comme décidé le 27 mars et le 29 avril, il nous revient de faire de ce fléau répandu partout, un ennemi public.
— François Bayrou (@bayrou) June 10, 2025
Education Minister Élisabeth Borne was on her way to Nogent “to support the entire school community and the police”.
“I commend the composure and dedication of those who acted to subdue the attacker and protect the students and staff,” she said on X.
Un drame terrible a frappé ce matin un collège de Nogent : une assistante d’éducation a été victime d’une attaque au couteau par un élève de l’établissement.
— Élisabeth BORNE (@Elisabeth_Borne) June 10, 2025
J’exprime tout mon soutien à la victime et à ses proches.
Je salue le sang-froid et l’engagement de celles et ceux qui…
The 15-year-old suspect did not have a criminal record. The teaching assistant received several knife wounds just as classes were starting, and the alleged attacker, who was overpowered by gendarmes, “appears to be a student at the school”, education officials said.
“Immense pain”
In March, French police started random searches for knives and other weapons concealed in bags at and around schools.
The teaching assistant was “simply doing her job by welcoming students at the entrance to the school”, said Elisabeth Allain-Moreno, secretary general of the SE-UNSA teachers’ union, expressing “immense pain”.
Allain-Moreno said that the attack “shows that nothing can ever be completely secure and that it is prevention that needs to be focused on”.
Jean-Rémi Girard, president of the National Union of Secondary Schools, added: “It’s impossible to be more vigilant 24 hours a day.
“We can’t say that every student is a danger or a threat, otherwise we’d never get out of bed in the morning.”
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen denounced what she called the “normalisation of extreme violence, encouraged by the apathy of the authorities”.
“Not a week goes by without a tragedy striking a school,” Le Pen said on X.
“The French people have had enough and are waiting for a firm, uncompromising and determined political response to the scourge of juvenile violence,” she added.
Pas une semaine sans qu’un drame frappe l’école. Désacralisation de la vie, banalisation de l’ultraviolence, encouragée par l’apathie des pouvoirs publics à y mettre fin, explosion du port d’armes blanches, les Français n’en peuvent plus et attendent une réponse politique ferme,… https://t.co/sakDFbf5WY
— Marine Le Pen (@MLP_officiel) June 10, 2025
In April, after a fatal attack at a school in Nantes, the education ministry reported that 958 random bag checks in schools had led to the seizure of 94 knives.
After that knife attack, which left one person dead and three injured, Prime Minister François Bayrou called for “more intensive checks around and inside schools”.
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Source: Reuters / France 24
