Nice (AFP) – The mother of a student who threatened the director and a teacher of a nursery school in Nice on Monday was in an irregular situation, under house arrest and on file for Islamist radicalization, but the motives for the violent attack remained unknown on Tuesday.

Published on: 03/11/2026 - 18:03 Modified on: 03/11/2026 - 18:29

In the Clément Roassal school, located in a large school complex in a mixed-race neighborhood near the center of Nice, the attack, which did not take place in front of the children, did not prevent the school from reopening on Tuesday. Both the principal and the teacher were present.

The 36-year-old woman, arrested on Monday and still in police custody on Tuesday, is the mother of two students at the school. She has dual Tunisian and Italian nationality, explained the Minister of the Interior, Laurent Nuñez.

“She has been the subject of an administrative inadmissibility since 2019, after being returned to Tunisia, in particular for attacks” and “remarks against police officers,” he explained.

But “she was arrested again in France in 2023”. She “checked in at the police station” regularly and was currently subject to an IAT (administrative inadmissibility). But “she benefits from a certain number of protections, since she is the parent of a French child,” he stressed.

According to a source close to the case confirming information from the daily Nice Matin, she is listed for Islamist radicalization. She is registered in the file for monitoring reports for radicalization of a terrorist nature (FSPRT), specified the same source.

In a press release Monday evening, the Nice prosecutor, Damien Martinelli, did not mention comments linked to religion during the attack, only "accusations of sexual assault of which one of his children was allegedly a victim".

The woman presented herself at the school reception around 9 a.m. on Monday, requesting an emergency meeting with the principal. Armed with a knife and a gun, she stayed in the latter's office for an hour, according to the prosecutor's account.

“Protection” and “support”

The woman hit the director and fired her gun pointed at her, without any shots being fired, specifying that she had two bullets in her magazine. A teacher encountered when leaving the office was also slapped and threatened with a weapon.

Late Monday, the prosecutor announced that the weapon had not been found, but Tuesday before the deputies, Mr. Nuñez declared that the weapon was "fortunately fake", even if its use could make people "think that it was a real weapon".

After leaving school, the woman was followed using surveillance cameras and arrested shortly after at her home in a nearby street.

An investigation was opened into the attempted murder of a person responsible for a public service mission and entrusted to the Nice judicial police.

“Once again, we are faced with powerlessness, faced with laxity, faced with the incompetence of a government which today has not been able to enforce its own decisions and which has made our country a sieve by letting in people who present threats to our fellow citizens,” denounced Mr. Ciotti in the National Assembly on Tuesday afternoon.

Monday as they left school, parents expressed their emotion to AFP, evoking the kindness of the affected director and teacher.

One mother was in tears at the idea that people could enter the school armed, but every day, dozens of parents and caregivers enter and exit through the small green metal door of the establishment to drop off or pick up the children.

The Minister of National Education, Édouard Geffray, announced that he would go to Nice "at the end of the week", ensuring that the victims will receive "over time, the protection and support they need".

In recent weeks, two parents of students have been sentenced to prison terms for having threatened the death of teachers, near Toulouse and Bordeaux.

© 2026 AFP

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