Police in southern France have detained a student aged 14 after a shooting at Joseph-Lakanal Middle School in Aubagne that wounded the principal and a teacher, local officials said.
The student is suspected of hiding a hunting rifle in his guitar case and opening fire on Monday, October 12, 2026, at the school near Marseille, officials said. Children ran for cover as shots were fired.
The Marseille public prosecutor, Nicolas Bessone, said in a statement that the student fired once or twice on the first floor, striking the principal and the teacher in the legs. The suspect then went to the second floor and fired twice more, Bessone said.
A member of staff disarmed the teenager before police arrived and took him into custody, Mayor Jean-Pierre Squillari told reporters.
A third person was grazed during the shooting, police said. The headmaster and the teacher were not in critical condition after being hit by ammunition used in 12 gauge shotguns, according to police.
One student told Reuters that her maths teacher had dismissed the sound of the first shot as noise from nearby construction. A second blast was followed by an alarm, and classes emptied into the corridors.
“We were panicking; we ran,” the student said. “There were two ways out: one passage to the sports hall and one passage to go outside. Survival instinct took over, and I ran towards the outside.”
France’s education minister, Edouard Geffray, posted on X about the attack. He wrote: “This unacceptable act is yet further evidence of the rise of unchecked violence in our society, against which we must all take a stand.”
Shootings carried out by pupils in French schools are rare. In 2017, a student aged 16, armed with a rifle, pistols and a small grenade, opened fire at a high school in southern France, wounding three students and the principal.
The prime minister’s office said the interior and education ministers were heading to the scene.
There was no immediate information to suggest that the shooting in Aubagne was connected to protests by high school pupils demanding schools with better resources, demonstrations that have shaken France for several weeks.
