A man has been arrested after two girls aged six and 11 were injured in a knife attack close to their school in the east of France.
The 11-year-old was stabbed outside school in the town of Souffelweyersheim, just outside Strasbourg, while the six-year-old was allegedly attacked by the same man nearby.
Both received superficial wounds, police said, adding that the suspect did not appear to have any known links to radicals and was not previously known to the security services. The girls were being treated in hospital.
Parents were later in the afternoon allowed to pick up children who had been confined to the school in the immediate aftermath of the attack.
The suspect, born in 1995, was arrested in the area where he is alleged to have attacked the second girl, police said. He did not have a knife in his hand and did not resist arrest, they said.
The attack came as the prime minister, Gabriel Attal, announced a series of measures aimed at cracking down on violence committed by schoolchildren against their peers. There was no indication so far that the suspect had a link with the school.
“I’m really scared. We’ve been reassured that the children are safe inside, but we don’t know when we’ll be able to get them back,” Sarah, the mother of an eight-year-old pupil, told AFP before the green light was given to collect the children.
“A friend called me. She saw the commotion in front of the school as she passed by. Her reflex was to call me so that I could pick up my son.”