AN art teacher is fighting for her life after being stabbed multiple times by a teenage pupil at a school in southern France.
The 60-year-old woman was attacked on Tuesday by a 14-year-old student at La Guicharde middle school.
She was rushed to hospital in a “critical condition”.
Police confirmed the suspect, who has not been named, was arrested on suspicion of “attempted murder”.
A source close to the investigation said the teacher suffered three or four stab wounds – two to the abdomen and one or two to the arm.
The same source revealed the pupil had been shouting threats at the teacher before the attack.
France’s education minister, Édouard Geffray, travelled to the scene shortly after the incident and expressed his “profound shock”.
The attack comes amid growing concern over a series of knife assaults on teachers in French schools.
Some of which are believed to have been motivated by terrorism.
In October 2023, a teacher was stabbed to death at the Gambetta-Carnot school in Arras, northern France.
Dominique Bernard, 57, was repeatedly stabbed in the neck while the suspect shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’.
Three other staff members were injured in the attack, allegedly carried out by ISIS supporter Mohammed Mogouchkov.
The 20-year-old remains in custody awaiting trial.
Three years earlier, teacher Samuel Paty was beheaded by Islamist extremist Abdoullakh Abouyezidovich Anzorov, an 18-year-old Russian refugee, in a suburb of Paris.
The attacker was shot dead by cops minutes after severing his victim’s head with a kitchen knife.
A colleague later claimed Samuel had been “concerned for his safety” after receiving death threats.
Colleagues said he had angered some parents by showing pupils a cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohammed during a lesson on freedom of expression, prompting threats against him.
The terrorist was believed to be furious children had been shown the cartoon.
More recently, a 66-year-old music teacher was stabbed by a pupil at a school in eastern France.
Last June, a supervisor at the Françoise Dolto middle school near Paris died after being attacked with a knife by a student.
