Student, 15, stabs female teaching assistant, 31, to death during bag search at French school

The student has been detained at the Francoise Dolto School in Nogent, east of Paris, and an investigation is under way.

A police officer helping with the bag checks was slightly injured during the arrest, the gendarme service said.

French President Emmanuel Macron said in a post on X: "While she was looking after our children in Nogent, an educational assistant lost her life, a victim of senseless violence.

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"The nation is in mourning and the government mobilised to bring crime down."

France's Education Ministry introduced bag checks this year as part of efforts in the country to reduce violence in schools.

Over a two-month period this spring, 186 knives were seized during school bag checks and 32 people detained, the interior minister's office said.

The victim, identified as mother-of-one Mélanie G. by local media, is said to have been taken into care in 'absolute emergency' before succumbing to her injuries.

She had a four-year-old child and lived in nearby Sarcey/

According to local reports, she was stabbed shortly before 8.30am at the entrance to the school during a bag search for knives and concealed weapons.

Elisabeth Allain-Moreno, secretary general of the SE-UNSA teachers' union, said she was “simply doing her job by welcoming students at the entrance to the school.”

Around 324 students were placed in lockdown. Classes today and tomorrow were called off and students told to return home in small groups.

Education Minister Élisabeth Borne, who introduced the bag searches, said she would go to Nogent “to support the entire school community and the police”.

In April, a high school student stabbed four other pupils at his school in western France, killing one and wounding three others before being arrested.