A French high school student is arrested after fatally stabbing another student and wounding 3: police

French police officers stand close to the high school Notre-Dame de Toutes-Aides, where police say a student killed another student and wounded three others in a knife attack, in Nantes, western France, on April 24, 2025. (Photo by LOIC VENANCE/AFP via Getty Images)

PARIS — A high school student stabbed four other students at his school in western France on Thursday, killing at least one and injuring three others before being arrested, police said.

The reason for the stabbing was unclear. Fatal attacks are quite rare in French schools.

The student stabbed four people with a knife during a lunch break at the private Catholic Notre-Dame-de-Toutes-Aides High School in Nantes near France’s Atlantic coast, a national police official said. Teachers subdued him, and he was later taken in by police, the official said. The official was not authorized to be publicly named according to national police policy.

Students at the school told French media at the scene that the suspect had sent an email with unspecified grievances to all students just before the attack.

The school confined the students inside for hours while police secured the site and carried out questioning, and worried parents waited outside, according to French broadcasts. Police and armed military forces surrounded the area.

Education Minister Elisabeth Borne and Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau arrived at the school later in the day. Borne said she wanted to show “solidarity with victims and the school community.” The regional prosecutor announced a news conference for later Thursday.

An official at the school, which is part of a complex housing a primary and middle school, would not comment on what happened, saying the school is concentrating on caring for the students who were on campus at the time. The school website was down.

By Angela Charlton