The attack happened as children were going into class at the primary school. (BBC)
A Moroccan immigrant mother stormed into a classroom full of children and stabbed the teacher to death today. The stabbing took place on the last day of school.
The Daily Mail reported:
A school teacher was stabbed to death by a pupil’s mother in front of a classroom full of her horrified five and six-year-old students.
The horrific attack happened on the last day of the school term at the Edouard Herriot school in the town of of Albi in south west France.
The 47-year-old mother reportedly burst into the classroom and screamed ‘I’m not a thief’ before stabbing the teacher in the abdomen.
She then attempted to escape but was caught around 20 minutes later close to the school grounds.
The Moroccan-born woman, who holds Spanish nationality, has a police record for child neglect and not reporting a runaway child, French radio reported.
Local prosecutor Claude Derens told AFP, France’s national news agency: ‘This morning a mother came in with a knife and stabbed a senior teacher aged 34 in front of the children, for a reason that an investigation will determine.
‘When I arrived on the scene, they were still trying to revive her. She was in cardiac arrest,’ said the prosecutor, who said the victim died of her wounds soon afterwards.
The attack took place around 9am at the school in the Lapanouse area of the town which has 284 pupils aged from three to 11.
The murderer fled the scene of the crime, and evaded arrest for 20 minutes before police found her near her home. The victim’s time of death was 11am.
Ms Derens said the identities of the attacker and victim, a woman, would not be released at present, but that the mother, aged 47, had a police record.