A secondary school teacher in south-eastern France was left in a critical condition on Tuesday after being stabbed by a 14-year-old pupil.

The 60-year-old female art teacher was stabbed three to four times in her chest in front of around 20 other students, according to a local official.

The pupil fled the classroom before being caught in the schoolyard, and was later arrested on suspicion of attempted murder.

Toulon's public prosecutor Raphaël Balland said the suspect did not appear to have had a religious or political motive, adding: "All we know is that there had been tensions with this teacher recently, and he was angry with her."

La Guicharde school was evacuated after the attack in the early afternoon and Wednesday's lessons were cancelled, a regional education official said.

Earlier on Tuesday, France's Education Minister Edouard Geffray said he was heading "immediately" to the school in Sanary-sur-Mer, a coastal area of the Var region.

"My thoughts immediately go to the victim, her family, and the entire educational community, whose deep shock I share," he wrote on X.

It is the latest in a series of attacks by students in French schools in recent years.

In 2025, a 14-year-old was charged with the murder of a teaching assistant after allegedly stabbing her to death in June.

In a separate case in April, a student killed a girl and wounded several others in a knife attack in the western city of Nantes.

In 2020, teacher Samuel Paty was murdered by a Chechen refugee outside the school where he taught in a suburb of Paris, an attack which was motivated by religious extremism. (BBC)

• PHOTO: The school in Sanary-sur-Mer was evacuated after the attack in the early afternoon of Tuesday. Photo courtesy of BBC.