A French teaching assistant allegedly stabbed by a pupil outside a school in northeastern France has died of her wounds.
A secondary school student was arrested after the knife attack on the 31-year-old assistant on June 10 during a bag search.
Reports from French media said the incident took place during a bag check by police in front of the Françoise Dolto Middle School in the town of Nogent.
A 14-year-old schoolboy has been taken into custody.
The school’s 324 pupils were confined indoors, according to the Haute-Marne prefecture.
Minister of Education Elisabeth Borne called the woman’s death a “tragedy”.
“A terrible tragedy struck this morning at a middle school in Nogent: An educational assistant was the victim of a knife attack [allegedly] by a student of the institution. I express all my support to the victim and their loved ones,” she said.
Borne was heading to the scene to “support the entire school community and the law enforcement forces“.
French President Emmanuel Macron also reacted on social media: “As she watched over our children in Nogent, an educational assistant lost her life, a victim of an outburst of senseless violence. All of us stand with her family, her loved ones, her colleagues, and the entire educational community.
“The nation is in mourning, and the government is mobilised to combat crime,” he added.
This is not the first knife attack in French schools. In March 2025, an attack also took place at a school in Nantes.
French Prime Minister François Bayrou announced “an intensification of the controls put in place in and around schools”.
