REPORTING. Many students at Saint-Thomas-d’Aquin high school are in a state of shock after the death of a teacher killed by one of them.
Lisa Etcheberry, in Saint-Jean-de-Luz
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In an emergency, the students of the other classes of this college-high school were evacuated around noon. Outside, one of them, in tears, confides while waiting for her father to pick her up: “The rumors speak of a teacher I knew. It’s horrible to think that this kind of event can happen here. »
“We heard screams and people running”
At the time, she, like her many classmates, was in class. During the emergency response, they were confined for almost two hours with their teachers. “Shortly before recess at 10:30 a.m., we heard sirens and we were asked not to go out,” says a first-grade student. At first, we didn’t know the facts, we were curious. But then, looking at the news on our phones, we knew what had happened. When we understood that the Samu could not save the professor, there was a dead silence. I needed to breathe. »
In front of the school, whose entrances have been blocked and secured by the police, all the young people are in shock. “We heard screams and people running. At first we thought it was an intrusion or a suicide. The CPE came to ask us to lock our classroom. We opened one of the two doors in our classroom and a boy told us he saw another student with a knife. I know a teacher tried to revive her,” said another student. “At the end of class, the vice principal came and led our teacher down the hall. They told us to wait, because it was dangerous. Through the window, we saw the police, the ambulance, the soldiers, ”says a fourth-grade student. “Our teacher was in tears, because she knew the victim well. When they evacuated us, the deputy director was out of breath. He tried to explain to us, but he couldn’t. »
A “strict but fair” teacher
A third-grade student is worried about his big sister, who was still in the establishment around 1 p.m.: “She was in the victim’s class at the time of the events,” he says, adding, somewhat relieved: “My mother told me she was fine. »
If the identity of the victim has not yet been made official, rumors quickly circulated within the Saint-Thomas-d’Aquin high school. And students who have had this Spanish teacher in class find it hard to believe in her disappearance. “She was fair but strict. She helped us a lot, she tried to encourage us to progress. The lessons were funny, because as soon as we made a mistake, she laughed. I can’t imagine that she’s gone,” says Patxi. He had taken a Spanish course with the victim the same morning, just before his assault.
A medico-psychological emergency unit for pupils and teachers who feel the need has been set up. The high school student, author of the facts, aged 16, was arrested and placed in custody. He “was not known to the police or justice”, according to the details of the Bayonne prosecutor, Jérôme Bourrier, who announced during a press briefing the opening of an investigation for “assassination”.