An investigation was opened on Wednesday, December 13, by the Rennes public prosecutor’s office after a 12-year-old schoolgirl threatened a teacher with a knife, who was not injured, Le Monde learned from the public prosecutor, Philippe Astruc. “A criminal investigation into attempted intentional homicide of a person responsible for a public service mission entrusted to Rennes departmental security has been opened by the Rennes public prosecutor’s office,” the magistrate announced Wednesday morning.
According to the first elements reported by the prosecution, a student from Les Hautes-Ourmes college came to the establishment on Wednesday morning “armed with a large knife, with the intention, it seems, of killing her teacher of English.” “[The student] would have followed [the teacher] before being disarmed by the staff of the establishment,” adds the prosecutor.
He reported in the evening that she had undergone a psychiatric examination at Pontchaillou hospital, which concluded that the minor was “dangerous for herself” and that her condition required care in a specialized environment. “Subsequently, a provisional placement order was taken by the Rennes public prosecutor’s office entrusting the minor to the Departmental Council with hospitalization in a specialized environment for the time necessary for care,” he added.
Once placed in “judicial detention”, the measure was lifted and the minor “has just been hospitalized in this context”. “Criminal investigations are continuing and a judicial investigation entrusted to an investigating judge will be quickly opened,” wrote Philippe Astruc in his press release. During a press conference in the afternoon, he estimated that the “psychological or even psychiatric dimension” seemed to him “dominant in the act of this minor”.
Previous behavioral problems
According to the prosecutor, the events took place during the screening of an educational film in English class, during which the student appeared “agitated”. During her hearing, the teacher said she sat next to this student, who then told her in a low voice: “I’m crazy today, I want to kill the students who don’t like me , and the person in front of me. It happened in Arras, it will happen today. »
“The teacher then decides to evacuate the room and stays with the student who grabs the weapon and threatens it,” detailed the prosecutor. She then “took an imposing knife out of her schoolbag” with a 17-centimeter blade, Mr. Astruc said. The student was quickly disarmed and controlled by college mediators before being arrested by the police.
The student was excluded in June from another college in Rennes for threats and insults against a teacher and had already brought a knife into the establishment without using it, according to the prosecutor. She returned to school at Les Hautes-Ourmes college in September.
The juvenile criminal justice code provides for a presumption of indiscrimination for minors under the age of 13, recalled the prosecutor. The National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office, informed of the facts, did not wish to take it into custody, he added.
In a statement sent to Agence France-Presse earlier today, the Minister of Education, Gabriel Attal, provided his “most absolute support for the professor”. “I appreciate the trauma that this attack constitutes for her and for the entire teaching community,” added Mr. Attal, saluting “the immense courage and composure of the staff on site who were able to react to this threat.” .
This case comes two months to the day after the assassination of Dominique Bernard, a French teacher stabbed to death in Arras (Pas-de-Calais) on October 13, almost three years to the day after the assassination of the history teacher Samuel Paty, on October 16, 2020 in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine (Yvelines), stabbed then beheaded near his college a few days after showing his students caricatures of Muhammad during a lesson on freedom of expression, two tragedies which had a profound impact on the teaching community.