Teacher in critical condition after being stabbed by teenager at school in southern France

Prosecutors said the art teacher was stabbed in the classroom at school in Sanary-sur-Mer

The incident took place at La Guicharde middle school (REUTERS)

A teacher is in a critical condition after she was stabbed several times by a 14-year-old pupil during class in a school in southern France, police have said.

Prosecutors said the art teacher, 60, was stabbed three to four times with a knife in her classroom at a middle school in Sanary-sur-Mer on Tuesday afternoon.

The pupil was arrested and was being detained on suspicion of attempted murder, the local Toulon prosecutor, Raphael Balland added.

No religious nor political motive could be found for the attack, but Mr Balland said there are believed to have been tensions between the pupil and the teacher. The attacker had no criminal record.

The unnamed victim was taken to hospital “in a critical condition,” said a local police spokesman.

“There were three or four stabs - two in the abdomen and one or two in the arm” said another investigating source, who said the boy “had been shouting threats at the teacher” beforehand.

Edouard Geffray said he was heading to La Guicharde (AFP via Getty Images)

France's education minister, Edouard Geffray, said that he was headed to La Guicharde school, which is where local media has pinpointed the incident.

"My thoughts immediately go out to the victim, her family and the entire educational community, whose deep shock I share," he wrote on X.

Security in France's schools has been the subject of intense debate in recent years with numerous incidents of teachers being injured my students.

In June last year, then-Prime Minister Francois Bayrou said the government would test adding security gates at schools after a school aide was stabbed during a bag search.

In September, a music teacher was stabbed by a 14-year-old in the face by a student during class in a middle school in northeastern France.

In October 2023, a French literature teacher was stabbed to death at the Gambetta-Carnot school in Arras, northern France. Three other members of staff were injured in the onslaught by alleged ISIS supporter Mohammed Mogouchkov, a 20-year-old, who remains on remand and awaiting trial.

In 2020, teacher Samuel Paty was beheaded after he showed pupils caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad in a class on free speech. The perpetrator, Abdoullakh Abouyezidovich Anzorov, an 18-year-old Russian refugee, was shot and killed by police minutes later.

The incident sparked a political uproar.