Nice (AFP) – An investigation into “attempted murder” was opened after the attack on Monday, in a school in Nice, of the director and a teacher by a student’s mother who threatened them with a weapon and hit them, before being arrested.

Published on: 02/11/2026 - 21:11

The Minister of National Education Édouard Geffray denounced an “intolerable” attack on X. “It comes in a context of trivialization of violence in our society, which we must collectively reject: to attack these two women in the exercise of their functions is to attack the entire School,” he underlined.

The 36-year-old woman, mother of two children attending nursery school in this school near the center of Nice, presented herself on Monday around 9:00 a.m. at the establishment's reception, requesting an emergency interview with the director.

“According to the first elements received by the latter, the person concerned threatened her by pointing a gun in her direction and making accusations of sexual assault of which one of her children was allegedly the victim,” explained prosecutor Damien Martinelli in a press release.

“She then slapped the director and then pulled her hair,” before putting the gun in her belt and slapping her again. “She took back her weapon and activated the trigger by pointing it in the direction of the latter, without a shot being fired, and specifying that she only had two bullets,” detailed the magistrate.

“She then manipulated the weapon with which she struck the director again in the face” before taking out “a knife which she placed on her cheek before leaving the office about an hour after entering it.”

On her way out, the mother "came across a teacher to whom she made the same accusations. She slapped this teacher and pointed the gun in her direction after having fired it. She then left the establishment."

Arrested shortly after at her home and placed in police custody, the woman indicated that she had "dual Tunisian and Italian nationality" and "worked as a nursing assistant".

The mother, who denies any act of violence, "has already been convicted twice, notably for violence with a weapon in 2019", indicates the prosecution, which specifies that the search of her home did not make it possible to find the handgun used.

The investigation opened in particular into the attempted murder of a person responsible for a public service mission was entrusted to the Nice judicial police.

“Educational community in shock”

The mayor of Nice Éric Ciotti, who visited the targeted school in the morning, denounced an attack of "unbelievable violence and particularly serious" which caused "a major shock throughout the entire Nice educational community".

No student witnessed the scene, Mr. Ciotti said.

Met in front of the school, Vanessa, mother of a child in junior high school, told AFP that "it was her teacher who was attacked, a very nice person."

Another mother of a student, whose daughter attends middle school, explained that she was “super happy with this school and my daughter’s teacher”. “Her teacher (the attacked teacher, Editor’s note) is great, the one from last year (the attacked principal) too.”

The rector of the Nice academy, Emmanuel Roux, who visited the establishment to show his support for the staff, announced the mobilization of an academic security team as well as the establishment of psychological support.

This case comes at a time when two parents of students have been sentenced in recent weeks to prison sentences for having threatened the death of teachers, near Toulouse and Bordeaux.

On September 10, a father who had threatened to "cut off the head" of a teacher at his son's school in Fauga, near Toulouse, was sentenced to six months in prison.

A week later, the Bordeaux court sentenced to 12 months in prison, six of which were suspended, a father of a student who had threatened to kill and assault a supervisor and the principal of a college in Eysines.

Still in Gironde, a parent of a student must be tried in March for having threatened to kill a teacher at an elementary school in Talence, near Bordeaux.

© 2026 AFP

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