Pupil opens fire at French school

French police arrested a heavily armed 17-year-old on Thursday after he opened fire at a school in southern France, rattling nerves in a country on edge after several jihadist attacks, authorities said.

The teen was carrying a rifle, two handguns and two grenades in the attack at the Alexis de Tocqueville high school in the sleepy hillside city of Grasse, police said.

An interior ministry spokesman said eight people, including the principal, were injured. Some were hurt in a stampede triggered by the attack. The suspect, who has not been named publicly, had shared pictures and videos on social media of infamous US school shootings, including the 1999 Columbine massacre.

The head of the regional government, Christian Estrosi, told AFP that the shooting was “not at all” being seen as a terror attack and that the shooter appeared to have “psychological problems”.

The head teacher was admitted to the local hospital with gunshot wounds to the arm and three pupils were treated for buckshot injuries, the hospital’s director Frederic Limouzy told AFP.

Investigators initially said they were looking for an accomplice but a police source later said the shooter appeared to have acted alone. France is still in a state of emergency after a series of terror attacks including the November 2015 massacre in Paris and a truck attack in Nice in July last year. The shooting comes just over a month before the first round of France’s two-stage presidential election, in which security is one of the main issues on voters’ minds.

1 HURT BY LETTER BOMB AT PARIS OFFICE OF IMF

A letter bomb exploded at the Paris offices of the International Monetary Fund on Thursday, injuring a secretary who suffered burns to her hands and face.

Employees were evacuated from the building near the Arc de Triomphe in the heart of the capital after the late morning explosion which was caused by a firework.

IMF chief Christine Lagarde condemned the incident as a “cowardly act of violence.”