Boy, 14, 'who knifed French teaching assistant to death had been told off for kissing his girlfriend and could 'no longer tolerate' female staff', cops reveal

Daily Mail​

5 days ago

The 14-year-old student who knifed a teaching assistant to death during a bag search at a school in France had just been reprimanded for kissing his girlfriend and specifically sought out a female supervisor for the attack, prosecutors claimed.
Mélanie G., a 31-year-old mother-of-one, was stabbed several times by the unnamed teenager outside the Françoise Dolto secondary school in Nogent, northeast France, on Tuesday.
She was rushed into critical care in 'absolute emergency' but succumbed to her injuries within two hours.
Mélanie was the mother of a four-year-old child and lived in nearby Sarcey, where she also worked as a municipal councillor, Le Dauphine reports.
She had celebrated her 31st birthday only a few days prior to the fatal attack and was described 'by all witnesses as a particularly well-liked person,' according to the prosecutor in nearby Chaumont, Denis Devallois.
Speaking to Le Parisien during a press conference this afternoon, Devallois shared more information about the circumstances surrounding the killing after speaking with investigators.
The student 'had a determined plan to kill a female supervisor,' the prosecutor said, adding that the boy had expressed a 'fascination with violence and death,' as well as with the 'darker characters' of television series.
Devallois said the teenager appeared detached and expressed no feelings of remorse or compassion in his interview with police, nor did he exhibit any signs of a possible mental disorder.
The student reportedly told police he attacked shortly after he was told off for sharing a kiss with his girlfriend at the school and 'could no longer tolerate the behaviour of female supervisors in general'.
He said he had not specifically targeted Mélanie, but was committed to attacking a female member of staff and doing the 'most damage possible', according to Devallois.
French gendarmes control the access to a secondary school after a 31-year-old teaching assistant was stabbed to death by a 14-year-old pupil
Mélanie had only been working at the school since the start of the school year, having recently retrained as a teaching assistant to have more time to take care of her child.
She was 'simply doing her job by welcoming students at the entrance to the school', said Elisabeth Allain-Moreno, secretary general of the SE-UNSA teachers' union, after the attack.
A neighbour described Mélanie as a 'devoted' person, a 'very kind woman' and 'a good mother'.
The offending pupil was arrested and taken into custody immediately following the horrific attack on Tuesday.
France's Education Minister Elisabeth Borne told reporters that the boy had been a student representative in the school's anti-bullying program, and had twice been suspended for disrupting class.
French President Emmanuel Macron denounced what he called a 'senseless wave of violence', adding: 'We all 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 reduce crime,' he said in statements Tuesday evening.
Meanwhile, French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou said the government plans to increase security measures at schools in an attempt to crack down on students carrying deadly weapons into the classroom.
'The government intends to move towards experimenting with security gates at the entrance to schools,' Bayrou said, adding that he wanted to ban certain blades, as currently 'a certain number of these knives are not considered weapons.'
Macron also said he would push for European Union regulation to ban social media for children under the age of 15 after the attack.
He said he hoped to see results within the next few months.
'If that does not work, we will start to do it in France. We cannot wait,' he told the France 2 public broadcaster.
'Platforms have the ability to verify age. Let's do it,' he added.
Backed by France and Spain, Greece has spearheaded a proposal for how the EU should limit children's use of online platforms as evidence shows that social media can have negative effects on children's mental and physical health.
Aurore, a close friend of the victim, told BFMTV yesterday afternoon that Mélanie had only recently been promoted a supervisor role.
'She was very happy to have this profession, she wanted to help young people. She really liked the work atmosphere,' she told the outlet.
French daily JHM reported that the attack occurred shortly before 8.30am at the entrance to the school during a bag search for knives and concealed weapons.
A gendarme detaining the student suffered a slight hand injury during the arrest, the gendarmerie said. The motive for the attack still remains unclear.
France has witnessed a spate of deadly knife attacks in schools in recent months. In April, a teenage girl was killed and three students injured in a stabbing attack at a private school in western France.
Law enforcement officers were instructed to carry out bag checks at schools across the country from March in a bid to quell the violence.
By April, the education ministry reported that some 958 bag checks in schools had resulted in the seizure of 94 knives - nearly one in every ten bags searched.
Allain-Moreno said that the attack 'shows that nothing can ever be completely secure and that it is prevention that needs to be focused on.'
A large emergency response force was quickly scrambled and support offered to students and teachers in the wake of the attack.
Some 324 students were placed in lockdown. Classes on Tuesday and Wednesday were called off and students told to return home in small groups.
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen denounced what she called the 'normalisation of extreme violence, encouraged by the apathy of the authorities.'
'Not a week goes by without a tragedy striking a school,' Le Pen said on X.
'The French people have had enough and are waiting for a firm, uncompromising and determined political response to the scourge of juvenile violence.'
French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou said the government plans to increase security measures at schools in an attempt to crack down on students carrying deadly weapons into the classroom
Education Minister Borne, who introduced the bag searches, said she would go to Nogent 'to support the entire school community and the police'.
It was the first year such bag checks had been coordinated at the school as part of a national push.
The rectorate said that there had been 'no particular difficulties' at the school until now.
The bag checks had been organised well in advance, in conjunction with the gendarmerie, it added.
Jean-Remi Girard, president of the National Union of Secondary Schools, said: 'It's impossible to be more vigilant 24 hours a day.
'We can't say that every student is a danger or a threat, otherwise we'd never get out of bed in the morning.'
Ms Borne announced in February that bag searches would be implemented across the country this year, citing concerns about 'a much more widespread use of bladed weapons' among young people.
The searches, she said, would be carried out by law enforcement officers and not teachers or assistants, 'since this does not fall within the remit of education personnel', the minister said at the time.
Police started carrying out random searches for knives and concealed weapons at schools in March.
The attack and bag searches follow a series of violent attacks in French schools.
In February, a 17-year-old high school student was seriously injured with a knife in the quad of his school in Bagneux.
Then in April, a teenage girl was killed and three students injured in a stabbing attack at a private school in western France.
The attacker was restrained at the scene after being restrained by a teacher at the Notre-Dame-de-Toutes-Aides school in Nantes.
After that attack, Prime Minister Francois Bayrou called for 'more intensive checks around and inside schools'.