France: Teen opens fire in high school, several hurt

A teenage pupil has opened fire at a high school in a small southeastern French town, wounding at least three people, including the headmaster, according to officials. Five more people were treated for injuries sustained during a stampede after Thursday's shooting at the cafeteria of the Tocqueville high school in Grasse, near Cannes. The three people with light gunshot injuries were taken to hospital. One 17-year-old pupil armed with a rifle, two handguns and two grenades was arrested after the shooting, police said.
Visiting the scene of the attack, France's Education Minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem said the shooting was "a crazy act" by an "unstable young man fascinated by firearms". Vallaud-Belkacem saluted the school's headmaster as "heroic".
She said that, "when he saw the pupil taking out his gun, he rushed up to him to reason with him ... and received a bullet injury in the arm."

The Grasse Town Hall said the incident was not "terrorist" related. Schools in Grasse, a town of 50,000 people, were locked down after the incident, and local educational authorities asked parents to stay away. Witnesses interviewed by local TV stations described a scene of panic as the gunman entered the school's cafeteria with pupils rushing to hide under tables or sprinting for the exit.
"We heard a gunshot and then an administrator came out and said 'there's an attack, hurry up and hide'," the student told Al Jazeera.
"We hid in a backroom and barricaded the door with shelving units, then we heard three shots fired. He came along and tried to open the door, but he thought nobody was inside and so he left."