France to deploy police at schools for spot bag searches: Minister

PARIS - French police will start random searches for knives and other weapons concealed in bags in and around schools in a bid to fight an increase in violent attacks, the Education Minister said on Feb 21.

The spot searches will begin in the spring of 2025, Ms Elisabeth Borne told the BFMTV/RMC broadcaster.

“I want us to be able to organise, together with the prefect, the prosecutor and the representative of the education system, regular bag searches at the entrance of schools,” she said.

These would be carried out by police as teachers and school staff are not authorised to search pupils, she said.

The new policy was prompted by stabbings becoming “much more common”, Ms Borne said.

The minister said she would also seek a rule change by which any pupil found with a bladed weapon in school would automatically have to appear before a disciplinary council. Any such case would also trigger a notification of prosecutors, without exception.

Currently, such a procedure is at the discretion of heads of schools.

At the start of February, a 17-year-old high school student was seriously wounded in a stabbing at his school in Bagneux, a south-western suburb of Paris.

Seine-Saint-Denis, a region north of the capital with above-average crime rates, in February placed around 20 middle and high schools under police surveillance, with some 100 police deployed.

The move was to help “prevent a repetition of violent acts” after a series of incidents, the authorities said. AFP