Crackdown as two girls are stabbed in eastern France

GABRIEL ATTAL, the French prime minister, announced measures yesterday to crack down on teenage violence, just hours before two girls were stabbed outside their school.

The government is targeting violence in and around schools as it seeks to regain ground lost to the far-right on security issues.

Sixth formers will now be forced to be in school during the week and teenagers who cause repeated issues will have their grades marked down.

Mr Attal revealed the plans hours before a man stabbed two young girls aged 6 and 11 outside their school in the east of the country. Their wounds were said to be not serious.

France has been shaken by a recent series of attacks on schoolchildren by their peers, in particular the fatal beating earlier this month of a 15-year-old schoolboy in Viry-chatillon. During a visit there, Mr Attal condemned the “addiction of some of our adolescents to violence”, calling for “a real surge of authority ... to curb violence”.

“There are twice as many adolescents involved in assault cases, four times more in drug trafficking, and seven times more in armed robberies than in the general population,” he said. “In the day the place to be is at school, to work and to learn.”

He added that parents needed to take more responsibility, warning that particularly disruptive children would have sanctions marked on their final grades. He said: “You break something – you repair it. You make a mess – you clear it up. If you disobey – we teach you respect.”