A 13-year-old has been indicted by a French court for attempted murder after he allegedly pulled a knife on an educator driving him to an airport to avoid a flight to Senegal.
The teen pulled a knife on an educator who was driving him to a local airport in the city of Nîmes on August 16th as he was scheduled to engage in a three-month trip to the African country of Senegal.
The trip was organised by the Aide Sociale à l’Enfance (ASE), France’s child welfare agency, as a means to broaden the horizons of the teen. The 13-year-old, however, did not wish to go to the African country and pulled the knife on the educator, placing it under his neck, Midi Libre reports.
Eventually, the educator was able to diffuse the tension and pulled over to the side of the road along a motorway in Lançon-de-Provence. The local gendarmes were then alerted and soon arrived on the scene and arrested the youth.
On Thursday, a local judge indicted the 13-year-old for the attempted murder of a person entrusted with a public service mission and placed him in pre-trial detention at the request of the local prosecutor.
Attacks and threats toward educators in France have been a major issue for years. In 2020, the beheading of teacher Samuel Paty by a jihadist Chechen refugee shocked the country.
Following the death of Paty, who was killed for showing pictures of the Islamic prophet Mohammed to his class during a lesson on freedom of expression, police arrested another man in Essonne who was overheard saying he wanted to “avenge” Mohammed.
“The man said to those present: ‘By Allah, the prophet, I will avenge you, these filthy teachers will pay for it,’” a police source said at the time.