A French court on Friday sentenced a former high school student to 15 years in prison for the fatal stabbing of his Spanish teacher in 2023.
Now 19, the defendant was charged with the murder of Agnes Lassalle, 53, at a school in the coastal town of Saint-Jean-de-Luz in southwestern France.
After about three hours of deliberation, judges at the juvenile criminal court handed down a sentence slightly below the 16 years requested by prosecutors and well under the maximum 20-year term he could have received.
Lassalle was stabbed in the chest during a lesson in February 2023. The court heard that the student, then 16, locked the classroom door before attacking her with a kitchen knife taken from his father’s home.
The trial, conducted behind closed doors in Pau, focused heavily on the teenager’s mental condition, with psychiatric experts presenting differing conclusions.
The court found that his judgement was impaired at the time of the attack — a factor that could have reduced the sentence to 13 years — but ruled that a longer term was appropriate due to the “undeniable seriousness” of the offence.
Lassalle’s killing triggered widespread outrage in France, particularly after images circulated showing her partner dancing alone beside her coffin during the funeral.