Ex-teacher seizes French students

BBC News ^ | 03/09/06

[hattend]

SABLE-SUR-SARTHE, France (AFP) - An unemployed teacher who took 20 students and two adults hostage in a high school in western France surrendered and released his captives unharmed, officials said.

The news brought to an end a drama that lasted several hours in the town of Sable-sur-Sarthe, southwest of Le Mans, during which time elite police teams and negotiators were deployed.

The top government official for the region, Stephane Bouillon, told journalists at the scene that a pistol the 33-year-old teacher had used to sequester the hostages turned out to be a fake.

The surrender "happened without any violence. The hostage-taker had respect for the children and the young people he had with him," Bouillon said.

"He just wanted someone to listen to him, to understand his distress," he said, adding that the man had previously received medical and psychological treatments for personal problems.

Demands during the crisis that the teacher speak with the media and a former education minister from the region, and accounts from school workers who knew the teacher suggested he was depressed over not finding work for a prolonged period of time.

The drama began Thursday afternoon, when the man was let into the Colbert de Torcy high school -- where he worked two years ago -- and proceeded to a vocational training classroom where he took the 20 students aged between 16 and 18 years hostage along with two supervisors.

The state school, which has 1,500 students enrolled, was quickly evacuated and police called in.

Bouillon said the man, whom he did not publicly identify, had demanded to meet Francois Fillon, a senator from France's ruling UMP party who was national education minister up to June last year, and who used to be mayor of Sable-sur-Sarthe.

Bouillon's cabinet director, Patrice Hatton, said the teacher had also demanded to speak directly to the media to explain his grievances.

Officials and students outside the school said the hostages had been allowed to use their mobile phones to communicate with their families and friends during their ordeal.

One employee at the school, Bernadette Mercier, said the unemployed teacher was known to be depressed, "apparently because he hasn't found work since leaving the school two years ago."

But, she said, "we never expected this sort of thing from him."

French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin congratulated police on the bloodless resolution of the incident, aides told AFP.

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who had interrupted a trip to the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe to follow the events, also hailed the outcome.

[pabianice]

Bouillon said the man, whom he did not publicly identify

I'll bet.

[sageb1]

Thank you for the update. It appears at least a couple of posters here were right. His name was not released.