The Pyrénées-Atlantiques juvenile assizes court sentenced a 19-year-old man on Friday to 15 years in prison for the 2023 murder of his Spanish teacher Agnès Lassalle in a Saint-Jean-de-Luz high school. The sentence is less than the 16 years requested by the state prosecutor. The trial was held behind closed doors in Pau.
The Pyrénées-Atlantiques juvenile assizes court found the accused guilty after three hours of deliberations, sentencing him to 15 years of criminal imprisonment, less than the 16 years sought by the state prosecutor. Now 19, the man was on trial for fatally stabbing 53-year-old Agnès Lassalle on February 22, 2023, during class at the private Saint-Thomas-d’Aquin high school in Saint-Jean-de-Luz.
As the class was ending, the student stood up, locked the classroom door, and struck the teacher in the heart with an 18-centimeter blade from a kitchen knife. Prosecutors described the act as premeditated, as the teenager had retrieved the weapon from his father’s home the day before.
The state prosecutor had requested 10 years of socio-judicial supervision. Psychiatric evaluations conflicted: one ruled out any disorder impairing discernment, another noted slight alteration, and a November 2024 report deemed discernment abolished at the time of the act.
Stéphane Voirin, Agnès Lassalle’s partner, said he felt «really at peace» after the hearings and added: «I feel like a parent too, it’s important to say it, and in search of solutions so that one day, all this stops». The accused, treated for severe depression after a 2022 suicide attempt, mentioned a «little voice» urging him to «do evil». He has been held at the Mont-de-Marsan penitentiary center since January 2025.
The teacher’s death prompted a minute of silence in French schools the next day, amid concerns over violence against educators.
