School shooting, letter bomb at IMF put France on alert

PARIS — A heavily armed student opened fire and wounded four people Thursday at a high school in the southern French city of Grasse, officials said.

Six others were slightly injured in the clamor to escape the school building, officials said.

The student, whose identity was not released, was subsequently arrested, a spokesman for France’s National Police confirmed to The Washington Post.

An Interior Ministry spokesman, speaking on French television, said the suspect is a 17-year-old male student at the Lycée Alexis de Tocqueville in Grasse. He was in possession of a rifle, two handguns and two grenades when arrested, the spokesman said.

At a news conference late Thursday afternoon in Grasse, French Education Minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem called the attack “the crazy action of a fragile young man fascinated by weapons.”

The Grasse prosecutor also told reporters that the suspect’s motivations “seem to be related to poor relationships with other students. It seemed to be difficult to integrate.”

 

Read the whole story from The Washington Post.

Featured image courtesy of AFP.