SAD: Heavily-armed student opens fire in French high school

Pupil armed with guns and grenades arrested after high school attack in which at least three students and headteacher were injured.

A pupil has been arrested after opening fire at a high school in the southern French town of Grasse, wounding at least three other students and the school’s headteacher who tried to intervene.

The teenager – who was armed with a rifle, two handguns and two grenades – was a student at the Alexis de Tocqueville high school, where he allegedly opened fire.

The education minister, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, who visited the school on Thursday, called the attack “the crazy act of a fragile young man fascinated by firearms”.

Prosecutor Fabienne Atzori said: “The motivation of the student appears linked to bad relations with other students in this high school, in which it appears he had some difficulty integrating.”

Officials variously gave 16 and 17 as the age of the suspect. His Facebook page indicates he is 16.

Le Monde said a police source had indicated the arrested teenager’s internet accounts showed he had watched videos of mass shootings.

One girl who saw the shooter enter the school told France Info radio he had looked her straight in the eye with “a fury”.

Another student, Benjamin, told Nice Matin: “I was sitting down finishing my lunch. I heard a big explosion, then two others. I turned and saw someone in the schoolyard with a pump-action shotgun, firing. He fired through windows into the classrooms overlooking the yard. When I saw that, I ran away.”

The prime minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, cut short a trip to the northern Somme area because of the shooting and a letter bomb blast at the offices of the International Monetary Fund in Paris, also on Thursday.

This weekend marks the fifth anniversary of the Toulouse school killings, in which an extremist, Mohamed Merah, shot dead three children and a teacher at a Jewish school before being killed by police in a siege.