Boy, 16, launches school shooting
Teenage gunman is son of far-right French politician
THE teenage son of a far-right French politician launched a gun attack at his own school yesterday, wounding four people including the headmaster.
Kylian Barbey, 16, opened fire at the Alexis de Tocqueville lycée in the perfume town of Grasse, close to France’s Mediterranean coast. The gunman, armed with two revolvers, a hunting rifle and a backpack containing fake grenades, was arrested after the principal and two students were injured.
Barbey was said to be obsessed by US high-school shootings and had complained of bullying.
A frightening video on his Facebook page shows a man in a clown mask pointing a gun at the camera and pulling the trigger before holding it to his temple and doing the same.
The gun in the video was not loaded.
The last photo the suspected gunman posted on his Facebook page was of an eerie Gothic skeleton figure with long hair dressed in a black coat and walking with a pistol in one hand and an assault rifle in the other.
He made it his profile picture on Monday.
His cover photo on Facebook is a picture of the Joker – the Batman villain – with the caption ‘give a man a mask and he’ll become his true self’.
School shootings are rare in France, and a national police official said authorities have no reason to suspect it was terrorism-related.
He added that there did not appear to be any other suspects, although police worked to ‘remove all doubt’.
The principal and two others were hit by bullets, while five more were treated for shock, the police official said. None of the injuries was life-threatening.
Education minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, who visited the school, called it ‘the crazy act of a fragile young man fascinated by firearms… We just missed the worst’.
During the attack, some students hid at the school and others were evacuated.
A police helicopter circled overhead in what is normally a quiet corner of France.
Christian Estrosi, president of the region, said the principal suffered an arm wound and told him that after being alerted about the armed student, ‘he tried to calm him. Unfortunately he didn’t succeed’.
A visibly shaken student told BFM TV that he heard four shots, then ‘it was total panic’ at the school.
‘I was downstairs… We started to run. I was with a buddy and we took refuge upstairs.’
‘Then the riot police arrived,’ said the student, identified only as Andreas. ‘It was like in a film.’
President François Hollande said that, while no terrorism link had been identified for this attack, ‘all this justifies the state of emergency’, which is due to run until July 15.
‘Crazy act of a fragile young man’