School killings leave stunned Austria and France searching for answers

Two shocking attacks less than two hours from each other, in France and Austria, left parents and governments in shock and to lose how to protect the students of the school against random and fatal violence.

Around 8:15 am Tuesday, a 14 -year -old boy from an ordinary family in Nogent, in eastern France, pulled a kitchen knife during a check for school bags and fatally stabbed a school assistant.

Shortly after, in southeast Austria, a 21-year-old man who had abandoned school three years earlier, entered the Dreierschützengasse high school at Graz at 9:43 am, and killed nine students and a teacher with a gloc 19 handgun and a sawn shot.

In both countries, there is a request for solutions and for an emphasis on young people who use such violence.

Austria has never seen a school attack on this scale, but the French stabs took place during a government program aimed at combating the growth of crime on the knife.

The shooter Graz, appointed by the Austrian media under the name of Arthur A, was described by the police as a very introverted person, who had withdrawn in the virtual world.

His “great passion” was first -time online shooting games, and he had social contacts with other players on the Internet, according to Michael Lohengger, the head of the Criminal Styria, the state where it happened.

Former student of the Dreierschützengasse school, Arthur A failed to finish his studies.

When he arrived at school, he put a helmet and shooting glasses, before leaving for a deadly seven -minute shooting. He then committed suicide in a school bathroom.

He owned the two cannons legally, had successfully had a psychological test to have a license and had several arms training sessions earlier this year in a Graz shooting club.

This sparked a great debate in Austria on the question of whether its laws on firearms must be tightened – and on the level of care available for young people in difficulty.

It appeared that the shooter was rejected from the country’s compulsory military service in July 2021.

The spokesman for the Ministry of Defense, Michael Bauer, told the BBC that Arthur was deemed “psychologically unfit” for service after having undergone tests. But he said that Austria’s legal system has prevented the army from passing the results of these tests.

There are now calls for the modification of this law.

Alex, the mother of a 17 -year -old boy who survived the shooting, told the BBC that more should have been done to prevent people like Arthur has to abandon from school in the first place.

“We know … that when people stand like that, it is especially when they feel alone and abandon and are outside. And we do not know how to bring them back, in society, in their peer groups,” she said.

“We, as adults, have obtained responsibility for this, and we have to take it now.”

President Alexander Van der Bellen raised the possibility of tightening the Austria’s firearms laws during a visit to Graz after the attack: “If we come to the conclusion that the laws of Austria on firearms must be modified to ensure greater security, then we will do it.”

Austria has one of the most armed civilian populations in Europe, with around 30 firearms per 100 people.

Although there have been school shootings here before, they were much smaller and involved much fewer victims.

The mayor of Graz, Elke Kahr, believes that no private person should have weapons. “Weapons licenses are issued too quickly,” she told Austria Orf TV. “Only police should carry weapons, not individuals.”

Armed gendarmes were present at the entrance to Françoise Dolto Middle School in Nogent, 100 km (62 miles) east of Paris, when a teenager released a 20 cm kitchen knife and stabbed Mélanie G several times, who was 31 years old and was a four -year -old son.

The boy accused of having conducted the murder told the police that he was reprimanded on Friday by another school assistant for kissing his girlfriend.

As a result, he had a grudge against school assistants in general, and had apparently decided to kill one. The schools were closed on Monday for a public holiday, and Tuesday was his first day of return.

The initial assessment of the state prosecutor was that the boy, called Quentin, came from a normal functional family and had no criminal or mental health file.

However, the child also seemed detached and without emotion. Adept at violent video games, he showed a “fascination for death” and an “absence of reference points relating to the value of human life”.

Nogent’s attack does not correspond to the model of antisocial crime for young people or the violence of the gangs observed in France so far.

There is also no suggestion of indoctrination on social media.

According to the prosecutor, the boy did little. He had been violent twice against the other students and was suspended for a day each time.

There is no break or family deprivation and school officials described it as “sociable, a fairly good student, well integrated into the life of the establishment”.

This year, he had even been named “ambassador” of class on intimidation.

For all calls for greater security in schools, this crime has literally took place under the nose of armed gendarmes. As the Minister of the Interior said, Bruno Retailleau, some crimes will occur, regardless of the number of police officers you deploy.

For more information on the boy’s state of mind, we have to wait for the complete psychologist’s report, and there may be that there are missed panels, or there are family details that we do not yet know.

At first glance, it may be more a lonely middle class, and its apparent normality suggests a crime triggered by internalized mental processes, rather than an association or an emulation focused on peers.

This is what strikes the agreement in France. If an ordinary boy can reveal himself like that by watching too many violent videos, then who is the next one?

Significantly, the French government had just approached British adolescence Netflix as an aid in schools.

There are differences, of course.

The boy arrested for the murder of a teenager in the television series creates evil “toxic” evil influences on social networks – but there is the same question of adolescents made vulnerable by online isolation.

Through the political spectrum, there are calls for action but little agreement on what should be priority, nor hope that anything can make a lot of difference.

Before the murder, President Emmanuel Macron had banged the right by saying that they were too obsessed with crime and not sufficiently interested in other questions like the environment.

Nogent’s attack put him back on the back, and he repeated his commitment to prohibit social media under 15 years of age.

But there are two difficulties. One is the practical nature of the measure, which in theory is treated by the EU but succumbs to endless procrastination.

The other is that, according to the prosecutor, the boy was not particularly interested in social media. These are violent video games that were his thing.

Prime Minister François Bayrou said that knives for the under 15 will be prohibited. But the boy took his own.

Bayrou says that airport -style metal metal detectors should be tested in schools, but most heads are opposed.

The populist right wants more difficult sentences for adolescents wearing knives and the exclusion of students disrupting regular classes.

But the boy in Nogent was not a problem child.

The only measure that everyone says is necessary is more the supply of school physicians, nurses and psychologists in order to detect the first signs of students who come out of the rails.

This will of course require a lot of money, which is something other than France does not have much.