A 14-year-old student opened fire with a hunting rifle on his school principal and a teacher inside a French middle school, wounding both before a staff member wrestled the weapon away.
Quick Take
- A 14-year-old student shot the principal and a teacher at Joseph-Lakanal middle school in Aubagne, France, on October 12.
- Both victims were hit but are not in life-threatening condition; the principal was wounded in the leg.
- A school supervisor disarmed the teen before police arrived, according to the town’s mayor.
- Parents described terrifying minutes of lost contact with their kids and crying students as psychological support teams arrived.
- Early reports gave conflicting details on the weapon and whether a third person was hurt.
Student Opens Fire Inside Middle School
The shooting happened around 10 a.m. at Collège Lakanal in Aubagne, a town near Marseille in southern France. A 14-year-old student fired a hunting rifle at the school principal and a teacher, according to the French Prime Minister’s office. Police confirmed the weapon was a hunting rifle. The student was taken into custody shortly after the attack.
The principal was shot in the leg, and the teacher was also hit. Both were treated for their injuries. Officials said neither victim’s life was in danger, citing updates from the Prime Minister’s office.
Supervisor Stepped In Before Police Arrived
Aubagne Mayor Jean-Pierre Squillari said a school supervisor disarmed the teen before officers reached the scene. The mayor said the student walked in with a rifle and fired twice toward the principal and the teacher. That detail suggests school staff, not law enforcement, ended the immediate threat. Local reporting also confirmed no students were physically hurt in the attack.
Parents Describe Terrifying Wait for News
Parents reached by French television described chaotic, frightening minutes after the shooting began. One mother said she could not reach her children for roughly 15 to 20 minutes while her daughter hid in a classroom with three teachers. Firefighters set up psychological support units at the school. Another father said children and teachers were in tears once the shooter’s location became clear to them.
14-year-old student arrested after shooting principal and teacher at French school in Aubagnehttps://t.co/Ypccr9vjIS#FranceSchoolShooting #Aubagne
— TrendKia (@trendkia) October 12, 2026
Conflicting Details Emerge in Early Coverage
Several French outlets, including Franceinfo and RTL, described the weapon as a hunting rifle, with RTL specifying a 12-gauge firearm. But TF1 reported the weapon may have instead been a pellet gun, a discrepancy that has not been resolved by any official forensic statement. Reports also disagree on the number of people affected. The mayor said the student fired twice, while one outlet reported a third person was grazed, a detail not confirmed elsewhere.
These inconsistencies are common in the first hours after a fast-moving incident, before police investigators and prosecutors release a complete account. No police incident report, prosecutor statement, or forensic weapons analysis has been made public so far, which limits full confirmation of the exact sequence of events.
A Rare but Recurring Pattern in French Schools
School shootings remain uncommon in France compared to other types of violence, but they are not unheard of. A 2017 attack at a high school in Grasse left four people wounded when a 16-year-old student opened fire. France has also seen other school-linked violence, including the 2020 beheading of teacher Samuel Paty near Paris and a 2023 stabbing attack in Arras that killed a teacher. Each incident renewed national debate over school security and the mental health support available to students.
Separately, some reports noted investigators initially considered whether the Aubagne shooting might connect to broader school protests occurring elsewhere in France, though police sources said no such link was found. The student’s motive in the Aubagne case has not been made public, and juvenile-investigation rules in France typically limit how much information about a minor suspect can be released during an active case.
For families in Aubagne, the immediate concern now shifts from the physical injuries, which officials say are not life-threatening, to the emotional toll on students and staff who lived through the lockdown. Local authorities have not announced further details on charges the teen may face, and the case remains under investigation.
Sources:
dailymail.com, lamarseillaise.fr, straitstimes.com, independent.co.uk, franceinfo.fr, rtl.fr
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