The 50-year-old female Spanish language teacher died from injuries inflicted by the attacker, a 16-year-old student, French government spokesperson Olivier Veran said.
The assailant was a teenager suffering from psychological troubles who claimed to “be possessed” after stabbing the teacher in the chest, according to CNN affiliate BFMTV.
BFMTV reported that, following the attack in the town of Saint-Jean-de-Luz, the assailant fled into a neighbouring room where he told a teacher that a voice had told him to commit the attack.
The teacher took the weapon from the student and remained with him until police arrived, BFMTV said.
Local prosecutor Jerome Bourrier said authorities have launched an investigation to determine whether the suspect committed “premeditated murder” at the private Catholic school in Saint-Jean-de-Luz.
Investigators were able to interview the suspect on Wednesday afternoon, he added.
The student was not previously known to police and justice services, Bourrier noted. He declined to provide more details amid the ongoing investigation.
Education Minister Pap Ndiaye, who travelled to Saint-Jean-de-Luz, said a minute of silence will be held in all French schools on Thursday at 3pm.
He said about 90 students, including those who witnessed the attack, as well as some teachers, are being taken care of by a psychology unit.
“Nothing suggested the occurrence of such a terrible tragedy,” Ndiaye said, adding that, “It’s a sad day for the French education system, a sad day for this school.”
The incident occurred at Saint-Thomas d’Aquin secondary school, in the Pyrenees-Atlantiques region of southwestern France, according to the local prefecture.
Veran, speaking after a weekly Cabinet meeting, paid his condolences to those affected by the attack.
“I can hardly imagine the trauma that this can represent, locally and more generally on a national scale,” Veran told journalists Wednesday, adding on Twitter that there are “no words to describe the tragedy.”
In 2020, teacher Samuel Paty was killed outside his school in suburban Paris by an 18-year-old refugee of Chechen origin who was angry that he had shown caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in class after the images were re-published by a satirical newspaper targeted in a 2015 attack.
